Friday, November 24, 2017

Again, we see atheismnthecity engage is more sophism and ad hominem.

His/her replies consist of "you are wrong, I am right, you are stupid, I know more than a doctoral degree holder." My readers have noted their amusement about this person's fallacies. I will once again refute his/her nonsense here. My replies will be bold and blue followed after "Sacerdotus."

<<Author's note: I know I just wrote that I'd be spending more time writing about social issues and lay off atheism for a bit, but a recent attempt to rebut my blog post on why I'm an atheist got my attention and prompted me to make a response. I'll get back to social issues when this is done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A supposed "philosopher" who challenged me on my post Why I'm An Atheist, wrote a follow up to my follow up, and in it he claims again, that's he's refuted me and that I'm ignorant of science and philosophy. The exact opposite is true and I can easily show why. His arguments are so bad, they are laughable. And I don't mean this to be facetious, I mean this with all seriousness. He makes so many common argumentative mistakes and factual errors that I cannot take him seriously that he has a degree in philosophy and science. If he does have a degree, he should get a refund, because he apparently learned no serious critical thinking skills because of it. His arguments are on the caliber of the same old tired internet apologist, like the many wannabe William Lane Craig clones out there. Only he's at the low end of the spectrum.

If you're wondering why my posts denigrate him so harshly it's because he mocks atheists and calls atheism stupid. Here I'm just giving him a taste of his own medicine.

I continue with part 5 covering arguments 12 and 13. Starting with his response to argument 12, his words are in block quotes.

12) All the arguments for god fail

Continuing on with this sad excuse for rebuttal we come to some demographics on atheism. He writes,

Many mistakes here. First, taken at face value, that article doesn't say atheism or the unaffiliated is declining. It says the unaffiliated will decline as a percentage of the world's population only due to the rising number of Muslim births in third world countries. (And by this metric Christianity is also declining). It doesn't say the raw number of atheists or unaffiliated will decline. In fact, the number of unaffiliated is actually expected to grow from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion. He'd know that if he actually read the article instead of reading the headline.

Secondly, I've already written a critique on my blog about the faulty methodology of PEW's projection methods. Read: Did Pew Project The Future Of Religion Accurately? I wrote that "It seems that they're not taking into account conversions and deconversions. Many theists are leaving their religions and becoming unaffiliated (which includes all deists, agnostics, and atheists) and this is especially true in the West, where the number of Christians is dropping precipitously. Their future projection of the percentage of the unaffiliated in the US by 2050 seems deeply suspect, and indeed, out of whack with their other data."

In other words PEW is just assuming that if 2 Christians have a baby, that baby will be a Christian its whole life and if two Muslims have a baby, that baby will be a Muslim its whole life. Their predictions are even out of line with their own actual data that shows the unaffiliated for the US has already grown passed their projection. This shows their methodology is faulty, so I don't trust these results at all. This new article is just a rehashing of the old one I critiqued using the same data and making the same predictions.

Here's what PEW predicts with be the number of unaffiliated in the US to 2050. They predict it will grow just 9 points in 40 years from 16% to 25%.

But here's Pew's own numbers showing the rise of the unaffiliated growing much faster. In just the 7 years between 2007 to 2014, the unaffiliated grow by 6.7 points. (Christianity also dropped 7 points during that time, showing US Christians are leaving the religion to have no religion.)

This shows PEW's long term predictions for the decline of the unaffiliated as a percentage of population are incorrectly underestimating the number due to a flawed methodology. Pew doesn't seriously think that the number of unaffiliated Americans will rise just 3 percentage points from now until 2050 after they just grew nearly 7 percentage points in 7 years do they? No. Rather, there is a flaw in their methodology in projecting future religious growth, which, I suspect, relies almost entirely on fertility rates.

The number of atheists in the US according to one study is much higher than previously thought, and is as high as 26%. In the UK the number of people with no religion has hit a majority for the first time at 53% and atheism is rising throughout virtually every country in the West. In Russia, Putin has made the Orthodox Church front and center because he's using to prop up his power. He's appointed religious extremists into positions that allow them to pass laws that forbid publicly criticizing the Orthodox Church. In other words, Putin is turning Russia into a theocracy where the freedom of atheists is being curtailed. One single data point from a single country doesn't show a trend. And Sacerdotus's source if taken at face value shows an increase in actual numbers, not a decrease. He just doesn't understand how to use graphs.

I am not surprised that this author seems to be allergic to facts. His/her arguments are void of them.

Ha! The one allergic to facts is of course Sacerdotus. He cites one country as proof atheism is declining, and he cites another survey with flawed methods that only says atheists will decline as a percentage of the population because Muslim births will grow enormously. It doesn't mean the number of atheists will shrink, they predict it will actually grow. But he's to stupid to know this because he can't read.

Moreover, science does not negate the principle of causality. It is a principle studied in physics and cosmology. The quote from Sean Carroll does not address what the author thinks it does. I demonstrated that in my previous reply. I refuted each point the author made using solely science, theology, philosophy, psychology and scripture where appropriate in order to correct the author's misconception on sin and suffering from a Christian perspective. This author did not bother to read my post it seems.

Science does refute the principle of causality. Scientists use the word "cause" because it's convenient. The problem is language. We have words that mean different things in different contexts, just like how "theory" in science means one thing, and colloquially it means another. Sean Carroll's point is exactly the point I'm making. Only Sacerdotus is confused on this because he doesn't know the subject matter. To further prove my point, here is Sean Carroll's latest talk at the Royal Institute in England on how modern physics has shown cause and effect are not fundamental to reality.

You can't refute anything by quoting the Bible. Sorry, logic doesn't work that way. His explanation of suffering from a Christian perspective just asserts (on faith!) Genesis as literal history, while at the same time he seems to affirm evolution. This shows he's contradicting himself because he doesn't have a coherent view on human origins. Once you accept evolution, there is no Adam and Eve who brought "sin" or suffering into the world. Death and suffering predate humankind by millions of years. Death and suffering are built into how evolution work. They are features, not bugs.

He/she claims that I never showed the KCA does not negate free will. I did, in the previous responses. I even stated this. I wrote,

"The premise of KCA does not negate free will. I have DEMONSTRATED THIS UNISING PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN MY PREVIOUS REFUTATIONS."

This isn't showing, it's asserting.

As stated before, this author is an academic sloth. He/she is so quick to play contrarian that he/she does not bother to read an opponent's rebuttals. In a formal debate, he/she would lose a lot of points. Paying attention is key to a debate. If the author simply skims through an opponent's rebuttals and is triggered to resort to ad hominem and strawman, then the author is simply asserting the contrary as factual.

That's exactly what this author has done. He's so quick to "refute" me he ignores words I wrote and then attacks a strawman. I'd whoop his ass in a formal debate. Anytime he wants one all he has to do is say so. He's welcome on my site to debate me any time.

I mention this in my book "Atheism Is Stupid." It is a defense mechanism used by alleged atheists when cornered with facts. They refuse to tackle them so their only option is to play contrarian. This tells us that this author is either not a real atheist or is extremely uneducated in the fields he/she pretends to hold mastery in.

Oh please. I'm as real an atheist as you will ever get. And I am educated in these fields. This guy's reasoning skills are so bad he cannot possibly have an actual degree in anything let alone philosophy. I've easily shown again and again why his argument skills completely fail. At this point I can't take him seriously anymore. He actually wrote this on his blog:

No one can be this stupid and have a degree in philosophy. No one. God can't have "absolute" power if he can't lift that rock he created that's too heavy to lift. (A rock too heavy to lift is by definitionunliftable). Otherwise he can't create a rock too heavy for him to lift. This is a paradox showing that god cannot do the logically impossible. He's more stupid than Ray Comfort at this point and even Prof. Pigliucci called him out on it.

I’m not sure why I’m being copied on this, but that sentence is, in fact, problematic. Even God cannot do things that entail logical contradictions. Many theologians agree, though they don’t see it as a limitation on God’s powers

Lastly, the fine-tuning argument does not entail that God can only create humans in one manner. That is just silly. If this were so, why would male and female exist, or different colors, shapes, and sizes among the species? We see the silliness of this author's claims.

He's again not understanding the argument. The fine tuning argument implies god can only create us one way because if god could create us 100 trillion different physical ways, then there are 100 trillion different physical ways we could have also existed naturally. The point I'm making hits upon the fundamental physical make up of all life: quarks and electrons. It's not about whether god could create different kind of animals.

The fact that God can create in many physical ways does not disprove fine tuning. It just shows God can choose any design. The author makes absolutely no sense in his/her comment. He/she is wrong on the merit of his/her own claims, not because I state so. What the author fails to grasp is the fine-tuning argument entails the ontological state of life now, not in the hypothetical. Things are fine-tuned now. If God created life in a different matter (IE water-based life instead of carbon), that too would be fine-tuned.

Yes it does show the fine tuning argument is problematic, because again, if god could create us 100 trillion different physical ways, then there are 100 trillion different physical ways we could also exist naturally. Therefore to say, via the fine tuning argument, that we can only exist one specific way (ie., being fine tuned), fails to take this into account. (See The Short Rebuttal To The Fine Tuning Argument). It's like this guy is purposely trying to be as dumb as possible. Add the multiverse hypothesis to the mix, and that takes care of the chance solution, just like how having many planets explains why our earth is just the right distance from the sun. Hitchens made a great point on the fine tuning argument in one of his debateswith Rabbi Wolpe,

98.9 percent of every species has ever been on earth has already become extinct. So if there's a creator or designer—and I can't prove there isn't—who wanted that, this designer must be either very capricious, very cruel, very incompetent, or very indifferent. Grant him and you must grant all that. You can't say "Ah, what a welcome. What a table was spread for us to dine on."

Some tuner!

Verdict: In addition to not understanding science and philosophy, Sacerdotus doesn't know how to read surveys and graphs. His source showing a "decline" in atheists or unaffiliated actually shows an increase in raw numbers. It's obvious he didn't read the link, he just read the headline. His other source relies on a single country: Russia. And today to is well known that Putin is using the Orthodox Church to solidify his power and he's allowing them to persecute atheist critics of the church to get their blessing. This is creating a hostile atmosphere for atheists in Russia, which is quickly resembling a theocracy. Sacerdotus fails to make his point. He also doesn't understand the fine tuning argument enough to know what he's talking about. As usual. And he fails at basic logic on what it means to do the logically impossible. His degree is fake because no one can be as stupid as he is and have one. His own supposed professor called him out on that.>>

Sacerdotus:

It seems like we have come to the conclusion of atheismnthecity's poor rebuttals. I have refuted each of them with ease. Notice how fast I was able to refute his/her nonsense and post it on my site. Immediately, thousands have flocked to read my replies because they know I have been winning here. Atheismnthecity describes my reply as a "sad excuse for a rebuttal" regarding atheism, but I will show why his/her conclusion is what is sad.

Atheismnthecity claims that atheism is not on the decline. The article atheismnthecity is referring to is the one linked above which relied on previous statistics.

" It says the unaffiliated will decline as a percentage of the world's population only due to the rising number of Muslim births in third world countries. (And by this metric Christianity is also declining). It doesn't say the raw number of atheists or unaffiliated will decline. In fact, the number of unaffiliated is actually expected to grow from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion. He'd know that if he actually read the article instead of reading the headline."

He/she does not understand that that the religiously unaffiliated include atheists. The 2012 Pew study states this:

"The religiously unaffiliated include atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys."

What atheismnthecity is referring to in his/her poor assessment of the statistic is what the 2015 study states:

"By 2050, the unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion. But, as a share of all the people in the world, those with no religious affiliation are projected to decline from 16% in 2010 to 13% by the middle of this century."

Note how atheismnthecity does not understand the above statement. The unaffiliated population is expected to exceed 1.2 billion in relation to the census of 2010 which claims there are "1.1 billion atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion." This means that from the 1.1 billion, the number will increase to 1.2 billion; however, atheists etc will decrease. The 2015 study states:

"...by 2050, the global numbers of Christians may be higher than projected, and the decline in the percentage of the world’s population that is religiously unaffiliated may be even sharper."

The facts are clear. Atheism is on the decline. The decline will be even greater if conversions projected in China come to fruition. The study of 2017 states:

"Some experts believe the Christian population in China is rising while the religiously unaffiliated population is falling. If this is true – and the trend continues – religious “nones” could decline as a share of the world’s population even more than the Pew Research Center study projects."

Atheismnthecity relies on his/her inferences on his/her blog to believe otherwise, but the facts have spoken and contradict the posts he/she has provided. There is no way around this. He/she claims that I cited one country, but this is not true. The links I provided entail a worldwide decline. I assume he/she is mentioning my post on Russia. This post was just a supplement to the Pew Study data that shows the statistics are accurate and measurable. Atheism is dying and dying fast. Even the "Friendly Atheist" has shown concern over the failure of rallies and conventions.

Recently, an atheist group in Australia had to cancel the "Reason to Hope" Global Atheist Convention due to lack of interests. Ticket sales were so abysmal that organizers had to cancel the even and issue refunds. Previously, this convention had thousands of participants. At one point, about 4,000 attended! However, things have changed. Atheism has declined so much that no interest was given to the convention scheduled for February 2018, see more here: http://www.sacerdotus.com/2017/11/atheism-is-dying-global-atheist.html

So no matter what atheismnthecity claims, the facts are the facts. He/she can close his/her eyes and shout that atheism is growing, but the facts show him/her to be delusional.

Next, atheismnthecity claims that science refutes the principle of causality. This is impossible because the principle is a science principle!

The very idea of the light cone in the theory of special relativity requires the principle of causality. There is no problem with the language as atheismnthecity claims. It seems that atheismnthecity gets his/her facts from a Cracker Jack box. I am not sure how this person comes about with his/her conclusions. It is clear that he/she is ignorant of physics and is inferring things Sean Carroll did not posit. He/she presents a video presentation by Carroll claiming that Carroll supports his/her point. The truth is that Carroll does not even address causality in the video. Here is the transcript:

[Music]

00:08

[Applause]

00:14

thanks Pat thanks to the Royal

00:16

Institution for having me back this is

00:18

one of my favourite places to come visit

00:20

and I thought that I would in the

00:23

tradition of Michael Faraday and

00:25

Humphrey Davy and all the greats who've

00:27

stood more or less in this place begin

00:30

the lecture by doing an experiment now

00:33

I'm a theoretical physicist I'm not an

00:35

experimenter so don't get your hopes up

00:37

too high but I would like to do an

00:39

experiment that illuminates the

00:41

fundamental nature of motion ok so you

00:45

see here we have an object it's a book

00:47

you can buy it and the finest book

00:49

stores everywhere and we're going to

00:52

observe what happens to the object

00:55

nothing much happens to the object is

00:57

the short answer to it it just sits

00:58

there but I can if I push on the object

01:02

get it moving and then if I stop pushing

01:05

it stops moving the nature of motion

01:09

there being demonstrated to you right

01:10

there so if you were the kind of

01:13

systematic thinker that lets say

01:15

Aristotle was you would go from a

01:18

demonstration like that to a very deep

01:20

picture of how the world works at a

01:23

fundamental level you would say that

01:25

there is something called the natural

01:27

state for the book to be in which is

01:29

just sitting there motionless you would

01:32

say that if you don't do anything an

01:34

object stays in its natural state but if

01:37

you apply a force to it in impetus you

01:41

can change its natural state you can

01:43

cause it to start moving and you notice

01:45

when I then stopped pushing it stopped

01:48

it returns to its natural state so you

01:51

invent what at what philosophers would

01:54

call an ontology or a metaphysics of

01:56

fundamental view of what the world is

01:58

made of it's made of things that have

02:01

natural States and if they're not

02:02

staying stationary and unchanging in

02:05

their natural States it is because

02:07

something is changing them when there is

02:09

motion there is a mover and you can go

02:12

from this simple

02:13

idea - a theory of physics as Aristotle

02:16

did and you can in fact go beyond that

02:18

to a theory of metaphysics that explains

02:20

not just the motion of things but more

02:23

or less how everything changes and

02:25

transforms at all you can even go all

02:27

the way back you can say well okay this

02:29

thing is moving because this other thing

02:31

is pushing it but what causes that other

02:33

thing to be moving if you trace the

02:36

chain of motion and movers backward you

02:39

eventually would need to reach an

02:40

unmoved mover and thereby prove the

02:43

existence of God without ever leaving

02:45

the lecture hall right here this way of

02:49

thinking is not only a systematize ation

02:52

of some very simple physics experiments

02:54

you can do it also sort of accords well

02:56

with our everyday experience when you

02:59

see something moving or not moving it's

03:01

because something is moving it or not

03:03

moving it so there became a

03:05

philosophical tradition which tried to

03:07

go from the physics of it to a deeper

03:11

understanding claiming that everything

03:13

that happens whether it's motion or

03:15

otherwise happens for a reason this is

03:18

not just a bumper sticker you can buy

03:20

this is a very venerable philosophical

03:23

maxim known as the principle of

03:25

sufficient reason so here you have

03:27

Aristotle Spinoza followed up with his

03:30

version of the principle of sufficient

03:32

reason and then live nets on the right

03:34

german philosopher who also invented

03:36

calculus they all put forward this idea

03:39

that we can understand how the world

03:42

works at a deep level by providing

03:44

explanations for everything we see in it

03:47

nothing happens randomly nothing just

03:49

happens there's always a purpose a cause

03:50

a reason why things happen you might be

03:54

forgiven for thinking that the ultimate

03:56

purpose was ever more grandiose

03:58

hairstyles for professional philosophers

04:00

even if live Nets sort of had some

04:03

artificial help there in in in his

04:06

coffer the problem is that this is not

04:10

right

04:11

the problem is that the world does not

04:13

work this way at a fundamental level

04:16

there's two problems one is it's not

04:17

right the other is despite the fact that

04:20

it's not right we haven't abandoned it

04:22

yet so we have learned a lot about how

04:25

the world works because of the progress

04:27

science and philosophy but we still talk

04:30

a language that is handed down to us by

04:32

Aristotle Spinoza and Leibniz now people

04:35

have tried to fix the language here is a

04:38

Bertrand Russell a more modern

04:39

philosopher trying to point out that the

04:42

very idea of cause and effect is no

04:45

longer fundamental in our understanding

04:47

of the world he says the law of

04:48

causality I believe like much that

04:51

passes muster among philosophers is a

04:53

relic of a bygone age surviving like the

04:56

monarchy he couldn't resist right like

04:58

I'm just the messenger here this is not

05:00

I'm not saying this surviving like the

05:03

monarchy only because it is erroneously

05:05

supposed to do no harm

05:08

now many people would be surprised to

05:10

hear the news that science has done away

05:12

with the principle of cause and effect

05:14

but I'm not gonna undo that it's

05:16

actually true it's not that there is no

05:19

such thing as causing effect it's that

05:21

it is not a fundamental principle of how

05:24

reality works it is a very useful

05:26

helpful way of thinking it about things

05:28

at a macroscopic what we will call an

05:30

emergent level of reality but it is

05:33

nowhere to be found in the most

05:34

fundamental laws of physics and that

05:37

difference puts us in the position of

05:39

Wiley coyote

05:40

a famous American cartoon character I

05:42

don't know how popular the roadrunner is

05:45

in uh in the UK good so wily coyote you

05:48

will remember if you're of the right age

05:50

had this thing that he did every single

05:53

episode where he would run off a cliff

05:55

and because it's cartoon physics not

05:58

either Aristotelian or Newtonian physics

06:00

he would not fall down until he noticed

06:03

that he was not standing on anything he

06:05

would look around and then oh and then

06:07

he would fall down okay we are all Wiley

06:11

coyote in some sense and in the

06:13

following sense

06:14

this cliff this solid surface that we

06:17

used to be walking on is our old

06:20

fashioned Aristotelian at all notion of

06:23

causes and effects and purposes and

06:25

meanings in the world we have left that

06:28

behind the fundamental rules of nature

06:31

according to our best scientific

06:32

understanding don't work that way but we

06:35

haven't adapted we still speak a

06:38

language as if cause and effect purpose

06:40

and goals and reasons why are the

06:44

fundamental way the world works so one

06:46

of our challenges should be to reconcile

06:49

the deep down vocabulary of the world

06:52

given to us by physics and modern

06:54

science with what philosophers call the

06:57

manifest image the immediately

06:59

accessible view of the world we have

07:01

after all physicists love to make fun of

07:04

Aristotle and say how wrong he was but

07:06

look the book does stop moving right

07:10

that's not a mistake that is an accurate

07:12

way of talking about the world cause and

07:14

effect are accurate useful ways of

07:16

talking about the world you can be

07:18

accurate without being fundamental our

07:21

goal is to show how at different levels

07:23

of analysis different levels of

07:25

squinting at the world reveal different

07:27

rules regularities and even vocabularies

07:30

for speaking so I like to trace the

07:33

origin of this shift from Aristotle to

07:36

Bertrand Russell for example it's

07:39

actually a long series of very very

07:41

interesting thoughts and experiments

07:44

over hundreds of years between Aristotle

07:46

and let's say Isaac Newton I like to

07:48

give some credit to this guy even Cena

07:50

who sometimes romanized or latinized as

07:54

Avicenna

07:54

he was a persian polymath in the Islamic

07:57

Golden Age and around the Year 1000 and

08:00

as a modern day theoretical physicist I

08:03

find even Cina extremely annoying

08:05

because his day job was he was a doctor

08:08

he was his interests were in health and

08:11

human anatomy and he wrote many books

08:12

about the human body and on weekends he

08:15

invented new fundamental laws of physics

08:18

we can't do that anymore it's more work

08:21

now the low-hanging fruit has been

08:22

picked so even Xena was thinking about

08:26

Aristotelian notions of motion and so

08:28

forth and what he pointed out for the

08:30

very first time was that this idea that

08:32

the book stops moving shouldn't be

08:35

thought of as the book returning to its

08:38

natural state of motion because if the

08:41

book was not on the table here in a room

08:43

but rather out in space like the

08:45

spacecraft if it were in the vacuum the

08:48

book would just keep moving at a

08:50

constant velocity what we now call

08:52

conservation of momentum or

08:54

servation of inertia now even Sina

08:56

didn't like this idea he didn't even

08:58

like the idea of a vacuum in the year

08:59

1000 we weren't sure whether there were

09:01

any vacuum vacuums so he put forward

09:04

this idea but it was seized upon by

09:06

later thinkers there's no such thing as

09:08

natural motion versus being pushed the

09:11

natural motion of things is just to keep

09:13

moving you don't need to keep things

09:15

pushed and of course Galileo helped

09:19

develop this idea he pointed out that if

09:21

you think of the fundamental starting

09:23

point of motion as constant motion with

09:26

the uniform velocity and then put in

09:29

things like friction and dissipation and

09:31

air resistance afterward you get a much

09:33

more accurate precise quantitative

09:35

feeling for what happens in the world so

09:38

the secret thing that sneaks in is not

09:41

just a new way to torture first-year

09:44

physics students with inclined planes

09:45

and pulleys and so forth there's a

09:48

fundamentally new way of looking at the

09:50

world the world is not made of motions

09:53

that have a mover effects that have

09:55

causes there are things that are doing

09:58

their thing according to some rigorous

10:00

mathematical laws of physics some

10:02

conservation laws very often such as

10:05

conservation of momentum and of course

10:08

once Isaac Newton came along and put

10:10

together his theory of physics and

10:12

motion and mechanics we had a much

10:15

deeper version of conservation but you

10:18

could call conservation of information

10:21

and even though it's sort of in some

10:23

implicit sense due to Isaac Newton it

10:25

was really Pierre Simone Laplace who

10:27

stuck his neck out and really understood

10:29

the implications of Newtonian mechanics

10:32

Laplace points out the following thing

10:34

let's imagine that we believed Newton's

10:37

laws of motion which they did at the

10:39

time and in fact I'll point out we

10:40

updated them since then but it's not in

10:42

a fundamentally another way that really

10:45

changes this particular analysis Laplace

10:47

says look think of two billiard balls

10:49

bouncing into each other and scattering

10:50

off now he think takes these in the

10:53

tradition of even Cena and Galileo and

10:55

so forth to be physicists billiard balls

10:57

they make no noise they have no air

10:59

resistance or on a frictionless surface

11:01

so they scatter off and they go their

11:03

own way the traditional question we

11:05

would ask of our students is if you

11:08

gave me the information at the start of

11:11

the experiment so where the balls were

11:13

and how they were moving I could tell

11:15

you I could solve the equations and tell

11:17

you how they would evolve thereafter but

11:20

what Laplace points out is that in fact

11:23

you could give me the information about

11:24

what the billiard balls are doing at any

11:26

moment in time you could not only tell

11:29

what's going to happen next according to

11:31

Newton's laws you could say what did

11:33

happen before that the information

11:37

necessary to tell you what's happening

11:39

in those billiard balls is contained

11:40

equally well in every moment of their

11:43

existence so he says imagine a vast

11:46

intellect later commentators thought

11:49

that vast intellect was insufficiently

11:50

sexy so they said imagine a demon which

11:53

we now call Laplace's demon and of

11:55

course if we had been at 20 if a 21st

11:57

century commentator would have been

11:58

imagine a really big computer that knew

12:01

the position and the velocity of

12:03

everything in the universe and all the

12:05

laws of physics and had apparently

12:07

infinite calculational abilities

12:09

computational capacity to this vast

12:12

intellect Laplace says there is no

12:15

difference between the present the past

12:17

and the future the future in the past or

12:19

equally transparent and known as the

12:21

present is because they are determined

12:23

by the laws of nature so this sets up a

12:27

whole long centuries long debate about

12:29

determinism and freewill and etc but

12:32

there's something deeper that gets

12:35

glossed over sometimes it is worth

12:37

bringing out it's not that anything goes

12:40

but the vocabulary has changed Aristotle

12:45

would have said if things are moving

12:46

there's something moving them there's a

12:47

cause or a reason why they are moving

12:49

Laplace as they just obey equations what

12:53

that means is that rather than a

12:54

cause-and-effect relationship we had

12:57

patterns in the universe

12:59

think about the integers write the

13:02

number zero one two three and also

13:03

negative minus one minus two minus three

13:05

there's a pattern there if you tell me

13:08

any one number if you say three I know

13:11

what the number before that was was two

13:13

I know the number after that's gonna be

13:15

it's gonna be four but I don't think

13:17

that three is the cause of four or

13:20

vice-versa there's just a pattern

13:22

that relates all those numbers to each

13:24

other Laplace is saying the laws of

13:26

physics are like that it's not that

13:29

there is an impulse an enchantment a

13:31

guiding force it's just there's a

13:33

pattern that says if this then that and

13:35

vice versa and this way of thinking

13:38

about how the world works at a deep

13:39

level is something we have yet to truly

13:42

absorb of course Laplace was not right

13:44

he didn't know about the true laws of

13:47

physics he thought that Newton's laws

13:48

were more or less correct it every

13:50

reason to believe that was true but

13:52

since then we have relativity and

13:53

quantum mechanics and so forth so we

13:56

have a better idea now of what the law

13:57

is fundamentally are in fact one of the

13:59

bold claims I want to make and you're

14:01

willing to disbelieve me if you want but

14:04

you would be incorrect is that the laws

14:07

of physics underlying everyday life are

14:11

today completely known here I put on a

14:14

slide just in case this sounds very much

14:18

like one of those incredibly dopey

14:21

pretentious statements that scientists

14:23

have made for hundreds of years right

14:25

scientists especially physicists my

14:27

tribe are very very famous for saying

14:30

you know any day now we'll have it all

14:32

figured out we'll have the theory of

14:34

everything this is especially common in

14:36

the late 19th century people were saying

14:39

yes we have you know mechanics and

14:40

thermodynamics and electromagnetism any

14:43

day now we'll have all the physics

14:45

figured out and then of course it all

14:47

went to hell because they invented

14:48

relativity and quantum mechanics and so

14:50

forth I'm not saying that I'm not making

14:53

any statement whatsoever about how close

14:56

we are to understanding all of the laws

14:58

of physics or everything we are made of

15:00

what I'm saying is we know some of the

15:02

laws of physics some of the things that

15:04

we are made of and more importantly the

15:07

regime that we do understand the domain

15:09

of validity of our current knowledge

15:12

includes everything in this room

15:14

includes everything that you experience

15:17

in the everyday regime of your life as

15:19

long as your everyday regime is not that

15:21

of an experimental particle physicist

15:23

but you you are made of atoms you are

15:27

made of particles electrons protons

15:29

neutrons those protons and neutrons are

15:31

made of quarks up and down quarks

15:34

and these particles feel forces and

15:36

there's basically four forces that are

15:38

relevant here gravity pulling everything

15:40

together electromagnetism pulling

15:43

together unlike charges and pushing away

15:45

like charges there's a strong nuclear

15:48

force that binds those quarks together

15:50

to make the proton in the neutron and

15:52

there's a weak nuclear force which is

15:54

almost dil rel almost irrelevant except

15:56

it helps the sunshine so that's kind of

15:57

important the weak nuclear force

15:59

converts protons to neutrons and vice

16:01

versa by spitting out a particle called

16:03

a neutrino okay so for particles

16:06

electron up quark down quark neutrino

16:09

four forces gravity electromagnetism

16:12

strong and weak and that's it we know

16:15

there are other particles there are

16:16

muons there are top quarks etc you can

16:19

argue over the exact cutoff for everyday

16:23

life okay but you're made of these

16:25

particles and everything you see with

16:28

your eyes touch with your fingers taste

16:30

with your tongue made of these particles

16:32

and the statement I want to make is that

16:35

understanding of what you're made of the

16:38

particles and the forces the laws that

16:39

they obey is true it's not gonna go away

16:43

it's not like epicycles or phlogiston or

16:48

caloric these ideas that we had in the

16:50

past that we showed later were

16:52

completely wrong it's an idea that a

16:54

thousand years from now or a million

16:56

years from now we're still going to

16:57

believe that these particles exist that

17:00

the rules that we now know are accurate

17:02

ways of talking about how they behave

17:04

inside you we might get a deeper

17:06

understanding you might realize that

17:08

space and time themselves aren't

17:10

fundamental we certainly don't know how

17:13

to take these laws and build them up to

17:14

make biology in chemistry and economics

17:16

or anything like that but at this

17:19

particular level what are the particles

17:22

and forces that you and I are made out

17:23

of what are the equations that tell us

17:25

how they behave we know that and I know

17:29

that you don't believe me because I'm

17:30

just showing you a cartoon you're

17:32

thinking to yourself I'm not gonna

17:34

believe this until I see the equation so

17:36

here you go

17:38

this is the equation I'm very grateful

17:41

to the Royal Institution for giving me

17:42

these six hours so I can explain all of

17:45

the terms in this equation in great

17:48

detail but that's okay you don't need to

17:49

know all the details as you see from the

17:51

labels on the equation this is a single

17:54

equation that more or less is the

17:57

information that the modern-day version

17:58

of Laplace's daemon would need to tell

18:02

you what happens in the world this is

18:04

the answer to the question you tell me

18:06

what the configuration of stuff in the

18:08

world is right now this equation tells

18:10

you what it will be a little bit in the

18:12

future what it was a little bit in the

18:14

past it's a quantum mechanical equation

18:17

so if you observe the system one of the

18:20

things about quantum mechanics is you

18:21

can only predict probabilities not

18:23

certainties but this is the equation

18:25

that tells you what those probabilities

18:27

are it includes quantum mechanics

18:29

space-time all the matter particles that

18:31

were made of as well as all the forces

18:33

that we know about and of course the

18:35

Higgs field lurking in the background

18:36

that we finally had evidence for back in

18:39

2012 what you don't see in this picture

18:43

is anything that Aristotle would

18:45

recognize as a final cause or anything

18:49

that Leibniz would recognize as the

18:51

reason why a certain event is happening

18:53

the language being spoken here is that

18:56

of patterns and differential equations

18:58

not of causes purposes meanings and

19:02

there's no values here there's no

19:04

judgments this equation what we call the

19:07

core theory of physics which has all the

19:09

particle physics and also all the

19:11

gravity that we know about the core

19:13

theory doesn't pass judgment on you or

19:15

me it doesn't tell us what is right from

19:17

wrong it just tells you what is going to

19:18

happen now even though I show you the

19:21

equation you might still not be happy

19:22

because you say well I only trust

19:24

equations that can fit on a t-shirt so I

19:26

had the experimental evidence that the

19:29

core theory can fit on a t-shirt we're

19:31

in good shape now I know what you're

19:34

thinking I've given this talk before

19:36

different forms you're thinking fine you

19:39

guys you physicists you have your

19:41

particles and your forces but it's just

19:44

the same kind of hubris to say that

19:46

we're not going to discover new

19:48

particles and forces that you don't know

19:49

about yet how do you know that there's

19:51

not new

19:52

particles mr. smartypants physicist and

19:55

of course there's two answers for that

19:56

one is it's almost certainly true that

19:59

there are new particles and forces that

20:01

we've not yet discovered remember all

20:04

I'm claiming is that we've discovered

20:05

the particles and forces relevant to our

20:07

everyday lives as a working theoretical

20:11

physicist I certainly hope there are new

20:12

particles and forces in understanding

20:14

I'm I'm just saying that whatever we

20:16

discover along those lines is not going

20:19

to affect your biology it's not gonna

20:22

affect your psychology it's not gonna

20:24

affect the motion of the particles that

20:26

do make up you that we know about right

20:29

now so how do we know that that's a very

20:31

grandiose claim it's one that we really

20:33

could not have made in years past it

20:36

turns out to be a very specific feature

20:38

of the way that this equation works it

20:42

is based on the principles of what we

20:43

call quantum field theory field theory

20:47

is the idea that what you think is a

20:48

particle like an electron or a photon is

20:51

really a vibration in a field filling

20:54

all of space why does it look like a

20:57

particle instead of looking like a field

20:59

that's where the quantum comes in

21:00

quantum says that when you look at these

21:03

things that make up the world they come

21:05

to you in discrete packets of stuff we

21:08

call those packets of stuff particles so

21:11

quantum field theory says the world is

21:12

made of fields but quantum mechanics

21:14

gives us the rules for observing them so

21:16

we can talk about them in terms of

21:18

particles and then it goes on to draw

21:21

implications from that idea so here's

21:24

one simple implication of quantum field

21:26

theory called crossing symmetries that

21:28

usually taught is a little technical

21:30

tool in quantum field theory but it

21:33

actually has extremely profound

21:34

implications so let's say we imagine

21:38

that there is a particle or a force or a

21:40

field that we haven't yet found in our

21:42

experiments that might in fact play an

21:45

important role in human biology or

21:48

neuroscience how would that work well

21:51

the first thing that a physicists would

21:52

do given the proposition that there's a

21:54

new particle is started drawing these

21:56

pictures what are called Fineman

21:58

diagrams named after richard fineman my

22:00

predecessor at Caltech my most famous

22:02

accomplishment as a physicist is I sit

22:04

at the desk at Richard

22:06

iemon used to sit at it is the desk

22:08

given to the most senior theoretical

22:10

physicist at Caltech who is not senior

22:13

enough to get a brand new desk when they

22:14

get there so I got that one

22:17

these fireman diagrams do two things the

22:20

number one show us what can happen they

22:23

are pictures of actual processes so the

22:25

diagram on the left you have an ordinary

22:27

particle at the bottom let's say a

22:29

proton at the top the red line is some

22:32

new particles some particle that we've

22:34

hypothesized and we're imagining there's

22:36

some new interaction or some old

22:38

interaction maybe electromagnetism or

22:40

the weak nuclear force via which this

22:43

new particle can interact with the

22:44

particle that we know about the proton

22:46

so you read the diagram from left to

22:49

right it says that the new particle

22:51

comes in a proton comes in and they

22:53

scatter off of each other by exchanging

22:55

some bows on some photon or some new

22:58

boson that we haven't heard about okay

23:00

number one the diet the diagram tells

23:03

you that can happen but number two there

23:05

are rules for attaching numbers to these

23:07

diagrams so if you're a graduate student

23:10

in physics this diagram will strike fear

23:12

into your heart because you go oh no I

23:14

have to calculate a scattering amplitude

23:16

and the diagram lets you do that it

23:18

tells you the probability the two

23:20

particles will come in and scatter off

23:22

now crossing symmetry is a feature of

23:25

quantum field theory that says given

23:27

this diagram given some new particle

23:30

they could in principle interact with an

23:31

old particle that I know I have inside

23:33

me I can rotate the diagram by 90

23:37

degrees and I get a new diagram that is

23:41

a little bit different when I rotate it

23:43

you know time goes from left to right in

23:45

these diagrams there's this there's a

23:46

little technical rule that if a line

23:49

gets flipped from going left to right

23:50

from to going right to left I exchange a

23:53

particle with an anti particle we're not

23:55

at that level of detail here but the

23:57

point is that rotated diagram gives me a

24:00

new process with the same probability

24:02

the same quantum amplitude as the old

24:06

process has in other words if the thing

24:08

on the Left can happen where the new

24:11

particle and the old particles scatter

24:12

off each other

24:13

then the thing on the right can happen

24:15

where to existing particles two protons

24:18

or two electron

24:19

or something like that can annihilate

24:21

into each other and create this new

24:25

particle you can produce the new

24:27

particle it can't hide from you and this

24:30

idea that we smash particles together

24:32

and look to see what comes out and hope

24:34

that new particles comes out that is

24:37

what particle physicists do

24:39

we've been smashing particles together

24:41

for decades electrons and other

24:43

electrons electrons and positrons

24:45

protons and protons protons and

24:47

antiprotons neutrons we've smashed

24:49

everything together that we have in the

24:51

core theory of particle physics we've

24:53

seen what comes out that's how we

24:55

discovered the Higgs boson at the Large

24:57

Hadron Collider in 2012 is it possible

25:01

that there are particles that exist that

25:04

haven't yet been produced in this way

25:05

sure but we know what that would mean

25:08

either they interact with ordinary

25:12

matters so weakly that you can't make

25:14

them then you smash literally billions

25:17

of particles together and no none of

25:19

these new particles are created that's

25:21

possible but if that's possible then

25:23

they're not gonna play an important role

25:25

in you there you can't make them they're

25:28

just irrelevant to the processes that

25:29

describe the atoms and the molecules

25:31

inside you the other possibility is that

25:34

you do make them but then they quickly

25:35

decay away that's what happens with the

25:38

Higgs boson for example the Higgs boson

25:40

you make it then it decays away in one

25:43

Zepto second Zepto second is a very

25:46

short period of time 10 to the minus 21

25:51

seconds so we say we've discovered the

25:53

Higgs boson at CERN we've never seen a

25:56

Higgs boson we've seen the thing the

25:58

Higgs bosons decay into and if that's

26:00

the way that these particles have

26:02

avoided being seen then again they're

26:04

not relevant to you and me if you did

26:07

have any in your brain they would decay

26:08

away in a Zepto second or less this is

26:11

why we can make this kind of statement

26:13

about our knowledge of the laws of

26:14

physics underlying everyday life it's

26:16

certainly you're welcome to imagine

26:19

other new particles and forces but if

26:21

they were there and they were strongly

26:23

interacting enough with you and me to be

26:26

relevant to our everyday lives we would

26:27

have seen them already and we do not so

26:31

we know what you and I are made out

26:33

what is remaining to do is to match this

26:37

underlying core theory equation to the

26:39

everyday life that we see and that's

26:42

where this principle called emergence

26:44

comes in that we have different

26:46

vocabularies different stories we can

26:49

tell about the world at different levels

26:51

of detail the story of the core theory

26:54

with the particles the electrons and the

26:55

quantum fields bumping into each other

26:57

that's the microscopic version of

27:00

reality our best current microscopic

27:02

description we may in the future do get

27:04

even deeper layers but the layer that we

27:06

have right now won't go away and that

27:08

microscopic description is a story of

27:11

particles fields differential equations

27:13

the macroscopic world that we are

27:17

familiar with in our everyday lives that

27:18

Aristotle knew about speaks a completely

27:21

different language there is dissipation

27:24

there's cause and effect there's a

27:25

natural state for things to move in

27:27

there are reasons why things happen

27:30

rather than not happen and much of this

27:33

is due to this first item on the list

27:36

here the arrow of time the difference

27:38

between past and future the arrow of

27:41

time is something that is absolutely

27:42

central to how we think about the world

27:44

it is so central that you don't notice

27:46

it is a thing Aristotle who wrote books

27:49

on absolutely everything from

27:51

metaphysics to drama never talked about

27:53

the arrow of time of course the past is

27:56

different from the future that's just an

27:57

obvious thing what is it what are you

27:59

even asking that question about but

28:02

there's no arrow of time in the core

28:04

theory equation there was no arrow of

28:07

time in Newton's equations for

28:09

describing the world the best since the

28:12

time of Isaac Newton the best ways we

28:14

have of describing the world at the most

28:15

fundamental microscopic level do not

28:17

distinguish between past and future in

28:20

any way

28:21

despite that the world in which we live

28:23

obviously does just doing distinguish

28:26

between the past and future in many ways

28:27

we remember what happened yesterday we

28:30

don't remember the future I hope nobody

28:31

here remembers the future you can make

28:35

choices right so like right now you

28:37

could decide that you think this is the

28:41

most boring lecture you've ever heard

28:42

you can leave you don't need to be here

28:44

for the next half of the lecture but you

28:46

cannot right now

28:47

decide not to have come to the lecture

28:49

you cannot make a decision that affects

28:51

the past right there's an asymmetry of

28:54

influence where does that come from if

28:56

the underlying law is to treat the past

28:58

and future symmetrically well it's all

29:01

comes down to this egg breaking if you

29:03

understand the egg breaking you

29:04

understand why all these things are true

29:07

this egg breaking illustrates the

29:08

increase of entropy or disorderliness

29:11

the second law of thermodynamics which

29:13

is going to be a theme of the Royal

29:15

Institution advent calendar entropy

29:18

increases you clean your room

29:21

you leave it to its own devices your

29:23

room gets Messier over time that's a

29:24

fundamental law of physics of course you

29:27

can clean it again but that's because

29:29

your room is not a closed system in an

29:31

isolated system or in the universe as a

29:33

whole

29:33

entropy increases the universe becomes

29:36

more disorderly the reason why is

29:39

because there are more ways to be low

29:42

and more ways to be high entropy than to

29:44

be low entropy you give me an orderly

29:46

arrangement like an unbroken egg it is

29:48

easy to break it there's a lot more ways

29:50

to arrange the molecules in the egg in

29:51

the form of a broken egg or scrambled

29:53

eggs then there are in a very delicately

29:55

chosen arrangement of the unbroken egg

29:58

that's half of the reason why there is

30:01

an arrow of time there's more ways to be

30:03

high entropy to be low entropy but the

30:04

other half is the universe was low

30:07

entropy in the past that's more of a

30:11

puzzle why was the universe lower

30:13

entropy more orderly yesterday than it

30:15

is today I can tell you the answer it's

30:18

because it was even lower entropy the

30:20

day before yesterday and the reason why

30:23

that's true is because it was even lower

30:24

entropy the day before that and this

30:26

logic goes back 13.8 billion years to

30:29

the Big Bang there's no fundamental

30:32

arrow of time or just like there's no

30:35

fundamental arrow of space in the laws

30:37

of physics if you were an astronaut

30:39

doing experiments there'd be no

30:40

difference being up down left right

30:41

forward backward in front of you you

30:43

could rotate yourself out there in space

30:45

it wouldn't make any difference here in

30:47

this room there's an arrow of space if I

30:49

let go the book it falls I could predict

30:52

what direction it's gonna fall in it

30:53

goes down we don't think that's built

30:55

into the nature of reality we think it's

30:57

because we live in the vicinity of an

30:59

influential object

31:01

namely the earth what I'm telling you is

31:03

that the arrow of time is exactly the

31:05

same way it's tempting it's natural to

31:07

think that the difference between past

31:09

and future is somehow inherent in the

31:11

net in the nature of reality but it's

31:14

not it's because we live in the

31:16

aftermath of an influential event the

31:18

Big Bang that had a very low entropy was

31:21

a very organised system we don't know

31:24

why if you want to know why well no one

31:27

knows why if you want to think about why

31:29

I wrote a book that was the first book I

31:32

wrote from eternity here you can buy

31:33

that that's where this figure is from so

31:36

what this is revealing to us is that

31:38

unlike an Aristotelian view which was

31:40

teleological things were directed toward

31:43

a future goal they were headed toward

31:45

going back to their natural state of

31:47

being

31:47

if anything the macroscopic world is

31:50

economical which is from the greek words

31:53

start or beginning the special state of

31:55

the universe was where it began we don't

31:58

know why it began in such a special

31:59

state but since then it's just been

32:02

winding down that's all it's been doing

32:04

there is no future goal or place toward

32:06

which we're going that increase of

32:08

entropy is sufficient to explain all the

32:12

differences between past and future and

32:15

we can't go through all of them that

32:16

would require another book or another

32:18

lecture but let's think about the idea

32:20

of a memory or a record some artifact

32:24

some feature of the present day that

32:27

gives us knowledge of the past in a

32:29

reliable way

32:30

so maybe that's literally a memory in

32:32

your head maybe it's a photograph maybe

32:34

you're walking down the street on the

32:36

sidewalk you see a broken egg I claim

32:39

that the evidence that you have there's

32:41

an egg broken on the sidewalk gives you

32:43

different leverage over the past than

32:46

over the future you can ask yourself

32:48

what is the future of the egg hold well

32:51

many things are possible right it could

32:53

just sit there someone could clean it up

32:55

but dog could come by and eat it it

32:57

could be washed away there's many

32:58

different possible futures what was the

33:00

past of the egg probably like well with

33:03

very large probability there was an

33:05

unbroken egg and somebody dropped it

33:07

right we can say something much more

33:09

specific and informative about the past

33:11

given this evidence of the egg right now

33:13

then we can about the future

33:14

why is that again if all you knew were

33:18

the deepest laws of physics that

33:19

equation I showed you or Newton's laws

33:21

or whatever your ability to extrapolate

33:24

toward the past and future would be

33:25

identical you have some knowledge of the

33:28

worlds present state but it is

33:29

incomplete you have this macroscopic

33:32

configuration of the egg but you don't

33:33

know what all the atoms and molecules

33:34

are doing the number of things the egg

33:37

could possibly do toward the future is

33:39

exactly equal to the number of things

33:42

that could have been doing in the past

33:43

if all you know is the fundamental laws

33:45

of physics but you know something else

33:47

you know that the early universe had a

33:49

low entropy you know that our past

33:51

something that philosophers have sadly

33:53

labelled the past hypothesis is most

33:56

boring label I've ever heard but the

33:58

past I pathi says the universe started

34:00

with low entropy and that provides an

34:02

anchor that provides an asymmetry

34:04

between what we know about the past and

34:06

what we know about the future so you

34:08

have not only the present information

34:09

but also that past anchor and that lets

34:13

you infer features of what actually

34:15

happened in the past if you have an egg

34:17

broken on the sidewalk there used to be

34:19

an unbroken egg if you have a photograph

34:21

of you ten years old wearing a red

34:23

sweater you probably were wearing a red

34:25

sweater that day we all know that we've

34:28

all heard right that there's this

34:30

general tendency of the universe to wind

34:32

down and evolve toward its heat death

34:34

over time and there is in my country

34:37

there's a controversy over what is

34:41

called creationism some people think

34:44

that if you think that there's a

34:44

fundamental feature of the world where

34:47

things just go to more more disorderly

34:49

states that is incompatible with the

34:52

appearance over a cosmological history

34:54

of things like you and me because we're

34:58

not low entropy how is it possible that

35:00

such highly organized things like you

35:02

and me could just pop into existence in

35:05

a world that is generally becoming more

35:07

and more disorganized and scientists

35:10

have an immediate glib answer to this

35:11

the earth and its biosphere is not a

35:14

closed system it's not isolated you can

35:17

clean your room there are things called

35:19

refrigerators if you put your bottle of

35:21

champagne in the refrigerator its

35:22

entropy will go down as it cools okay so

35:26

therefore there's no contradiction with

35:27

the second law of thermodynamics

35:28

that low entropy things like you and me

35:31

came to be as the universe expanded and

35:33

cooled on the other hand just because

35:36

you can clean your room doesn't mean you

35:38

will clean your room some of you may

35:40

have experienced this with children or

35:42

even yourselves so the fact that the

35:46

earth is not a closed system allows for

35:48

the appearance of organized systems like

35:50

you and me but it doesn't explain why it

35:52

happened

35:52

the explanation is of course incomplete

35:55

we don't know the full answer but it

35:57

relies on the fact that there's a

35:58

difference between simplicity and

36:01

complexity there's an axis if you like

36:04

between simple systems and complex

36:06

systems another axis between low entropy

36:09

organized things and high entropy

36:11

disorganized things being disorganized

36:14

does not mean being simple or being

36:17

complex think about one of my favorite

36:19

examples mixing cream into coffee on the

36:22

left you have a low entropy situation

36:24

all the creams on the top all the

36:25

coffee's on the bottom as time goes on

36:28

the cream mixes into the coffee on the

36:30

right you have a high entropy situation

36:33

everything is mixed together

36:34

that's a natural flow of time from past

36:37

to future but think about the system on

36:40

the left it is very simple here the

36:43

technical definition of simplicity vs.

36:45

complexity is how long do you have to

36:47

talk to me to describe the system in

36:50

full detail how many bytes of

36:52

information do you need on the Left all

36:54

the creams on the top all the coffees on

36:57

the bottom it's very simple on the right

36:59

everything is mixed together it's also

37:02

very simple it's in between

37:05

it's where those tendrils of cream and

37:07

coffee are mixing together in some

37:09

intricate fractal pattern that's when

37:11

things look complex so there's a natural

37:14

tendency as the universe ages for

37:16

entropy to increase but at the same time

37:20

complexity first increases and then

37:23

decreases it's not only that complex

37:26

complex systems are allowed to come into

37:28

existence when entropy is increasing in

37:31

a very real sense they do come into

37:34

existence because entropy is increasing

37:37

or at least they can maintain themselves

37:39

they can maintain structure in order and

37:42

self-repair because we're in a very low

37:45

entropy universe that is only gradually

37:47

becoming more and more disorderly and

37:50

it's not just cups of coffee and cream

37:52

that this is true for this is true for

37:54

the universe so here is the history of

37:57

our observable universe and a very brief

37:58

presentation it started out we don't

38:01

know what happened at the Big Bang but

38:02

one second after the Big Bang we know

38:04

what the universe was like it was hot

38:06

dense and smooth that's it that's a very

38:09

simple explanation a very simple

38:11

description I didn't take that many

38:13

bites to give it to you as the universe

38:16

expands and cools it becomes

38:18

increasingly lumpier because gravity

38:21

pulls things together so a few hundred

38:23

thousand years after the Big Bang we get

38:25

the cosmic background radiation a

38:27

snapshot of what the universe looked

38:28

like when it first became transparent

38:30

tiny variations in density from place to

38:33

place but still pretty smooth now

38:36

fourteen billion years after the Big

38:38

Bang the universe is very complicated

38:39

we've formed galaxies and stars and

38:41

planets and biospheres and lecture halls

38:44

it's a very complicated part of the

38:46

universe but we can keep going

38:49

we discovered in 1998 of the universe is

38:51

not only expanding but accelerating it's

38:53

expanding faster and faster which means

38:55

it's never gonna stop according to our

38:57

best current theories what will happen

38:59

is the stars will burn out 10 to the 15

39:02

years 1 quadrillion years from now the

39:04

last star will stop shining sorry all

39:09

those stars are gonna fall into black

39:11

holes and Stephen Hawking taught us in

39:14

1970s that even black holes don't last

39:16

forever they give off radiation so 10 to

39:18

the 100 years from now what used to be

39:21

called a Google before the search engine

39:23

took over the term 10 to 100 years from

39:26

now there'll be nothing left in the

39:28

observable universe it will literally be

39:29

nothing but empty space nothing but

39:32

empty space is very simple but it is

39:35

very high entropy everything's very far

39:37

apart so there's lots of different

39:37

arrangements for the things that do

39:39

exist in the universe so the entropy of

39:41

this universe just increases but the

39:43

complexity first increases and then

39:45

decreases this is a natural robust

39:48

generic way that complexity can come

39:51

into being well we want to do that's the

39:53

easy part well we want to do is take

39:55

that natural

39:56

bust simple story and apply to the real

39:58

evolution of complicated structures like

40:01

life here on earth so for me the

40:06

Epiphany was one day I was taking a

40:08

plane ride to a conference and I was

40:10

actually interested in the origin of

40:12

life I was reading a paper a technical

40:14

paper on the relationship between

40:16

physics and the origin of life so I'm

40:18

sitting there reading my paper the guy

40:19

in the plane seat next to me starts

40:23

talking and you know as a theoretical

40:24

physicists and cosmologists you need a

40:26

lot of people who have furies about the

40:29

universe that they would like to explain

40:31

to you so this guy looks at my paper and

40:35

he says oh yes I'm familiar with that

40:36

work in fact I can tell you the purpose

40:39

of life like okay long plane ride ahead

40:43

lay it on me he said the purpose of life

40:46

is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide not

40:49

what I expected his theory to be turns

40:53

out the guy sitting next to me was dr.

40:55

Michael Russell the Jet Propulsion

40:56

Laboratory in Pasadena one of the

40:58

world's leading researchers on the

41:00

origin of life what are the odds we

41:05

turns out we're going to the same

41:06

conference so it's not completely a

41:08

coincidence everything happens for a

41:09

reason remember

41:11

so Mike Russell's theory which is not

41:14

universally accepted we don't know how

41:16

life began there are different competing

41:18

ideas he has one of the good ideas his

41:21

idea is that in certain environments of

41:23

the early Earth were in a low entropy

41:25

configuration in particular all the

41:28

carbon atoms were in the form of carbon

41:31

dioxide which happens to be relatively

41:33

low entropy given all the water and

41:36

hydrogen around them they could be in

41:38

the form of methane ch4 that would be a

41:40

higher entropy configuration in some

41:43

sense to be a little bit poetic about it

41:46

it wants to be in the form of methane

41:48

that would be higher entropy but there

41:50

is no simple chemical reaction that goes

41:53

from carbon dioxide to methane while

41:56

increasing the entropy all along there's

41:59

a barrier in between you need to first

42:01

lower the entropy to get to the higher

42:04

entropy state so Mike Russell's idea is

42:06

that even though there's no simple

42:08

chemical reaction there is a network

42:10

of complex chemical reactions that could

42:12

do the trick and that in the right

42:14

circumstances that could happen and be

42:16

self-sustaining and that self-sustaining

42:19

metabolism could then break free of its

42:22

original environment and become the

42:24

precursor to life so it's more than just

42:26

a pretty story he actually made a

42:28

prediction he's a geologist by training

42:30

and he said you know if this is true

42:32

there must exist under the ocean floor

42:34

certain kind of geological formations

42:36

warm alkaline hydrothermal event

42:39

hydrothermal vents where this kind of

42:42

chemistry is going on and after he made

42:45

the prediction they found them this is

42:47

what you live for in science this is a

42:48

picture of the lost city

42:50

hydrothermal formation deep underneath

42:53

the Atlantic Ocean in the mid-atlantic

42:54

ridge it's been it lasts for tens of

42:58

thousands of years so Mike Russell and

43:00

other people think that maybe this is

43:02

the kind of place where life began we

43:04

don't know I'm not pushing this theory

43:06

necessarily what I'm pointing out is

43:07

that rather than saying but entropy

43:10

increases why should something as

43:12

complex as life ever come to be the it's

43:16

very very plausible that the appearance

43:18

of life depended on the fact that

43:21

entropy tends to increase so you

43:23

actually find the complexity depends on

43:25

entropy increasing and vice versa the

43:28

reason why entropy could increase in

43:29

this system is only because you had a

43:31

complex network of reactions and that of

43:35

course continues to the present day we

43:37

live in an open system we live here on

43:39

earth you ask yourself what good is the

43:42

Sun what does the Sun do for us here on

43:45

earth you might think well we get energy

43:47

from the Sun but that's not quite right

43:49

it's true that we get energy from the

43:51

Sun go we give the same amount of energy

43:52

back to the universe we radiate back

43:55

into the universe the same amount of

43:57

energy that we get from solar radiation

43:59

the difference is that for every one

44:01

photon of light we get from the Sun

44:03

visible light we radiate twenty photons

44:07

of infrared light back to the universe

44:09

with on average one twentieth of the

44:11

energy each but twenty times the entropy

44:16

the thing that the Sun gives us is not

44:18

just energy but energy in a concentrated

44:21

low entropy form

44:23

and we then photosynthesize chew our cod

44:26

eat our cows give lectures write books

44:30

all of that all those processes increase

44:33

the entropy of the universe along the

44:35

way then we give it back to the universe

44:37

in the form of infrared radiation so we

44:40

are sustained by increasing entropy back

44:42

in the 1800s it was a reasonable

44:45

hypothesis that life was a thing we

44:49

thought for instance that heat was a

44:50

thing if you put a hot object next to a

44:53

cold object they equilibrates they come

44:55

to the same temperature so people said

44:56

well that's kind of like putting two

44:58

vessels with a fluid in it the fluid

45:01

comes to the same level there must be a

45:02

heat fluid that flows from the hot thing

45:05

to the cold thing not true don't believe

45:08

anything I just said

45:09

heat is not a fluid heat is a feature it

45:11

is a way of talking about the motions of

45:14

the atoms and molecules life is the same

45:16

way life is not a force or a substance

45:19

that is in your body and then leaves it

45:22

is a feature it is a way of talking

45:24

about what is happening inside you the

45:27

bad news is that that means it will end

45:28

someday but we'll get to that in a

45:30

second

45:31

I have lots of bad news don't don't

45:32

worry the good news is that once this

45:37

happens once you get life once you get

45:40

this chemical reaction that sustains

45:42

itself and reproduces and wants to keep

45:45

going there's this wonderful thing that

45:46

kicks in called evolution if there's

45:50

different ways the chemical reaction

45:51

could arrange itself and some of them

45:53

will more robust and more likely to

45:54

survive professor Darwin would tell you

45:56

that's what's going to happen those more

45:58

robust ones are likely to dominate the

46:00

future ecosystem in that particular

46:02

environment and what that means is that

46:05

we can once again change our

46:07

vocabularies just as we change our

46:09

vocabulary - going from particles and

46:12

atoms to eggs and entropy and and time

46:15

we can change our vocabulary when we

46:18

start talking about biology and

46:19

evolution because the new words that

46:22

creep into our vocabulary are words of

46:24

purpose and reasons why why is it that a

46:28

giraffe has a very long neck you could

46:31

say if you want to be annoying about it

46:33

well because of the laws of physics and

46:35

the initial conditions of the universe

46:37

that's why giraffe has its long necks

46:39

that's the answer to every question why

46:40

is something true laws of physics and

46:42

the initial conditions of the universe

46:44

but it's not the only possible answer in

46:47

fact it's not a very sensible answer

46:49

right there's another answer that says

46:51

well giraffes had mutations in their

46:54

genes and some of them got longer necks

46:56

and those were able to reach sources of

46:59

food up on trees that other animals with

47:01

which they were competing were not able

47:03

to reach and therefore over successive

47:05

generations the longer and longer necks

47:07

survived and flourished and they were

47:09

naturally selected to be like that so in

47:12

a very real sense the purpose of the

47:14

giraffes long neck is to help it reach

47:17

food sources that it couldn't otherwise

47:18

reach where did that purpose come in did

47:22

it did someone put it there

47:23

no it evolved naturally but that doesn't

47:26

mean it's fake it doesn't mean it's an

47:27

illusion it is a useful emergent

47:30

vocabulary for talking about what

47:32

happens at the macroscopic level and

47:35

you're probably willing to believe that

47:37

if I'm just talking about life and

47:38

biology it's where it comes to thinking

47:41

and neuroscience and consciousness that

47:44

people tend to get off the bus and of

47:46

course just like with the origin of life

47:48

we don't understand the origin of

47:49

consciousness or what it really is well

47:52

we can do is suggest occasional steps in

47:56

the history of life which might help us

47:58

understand why consciousness became an

48:01

interesting part of biology this guy up

48:04

here the C elegans nematode kind of flat

48:08

worm is a little model organism that

48:10

biologists like to study in your brain

48:13

the cells doing the thinking are the

48:14

neurons there's something like 85

48:17

billion neurons in your brain and

48:19

different neurons are connected to each

48:21

other and a big project for modern

48:23

neuroscience is studying the connectome

48:25

the way that all the neurons in your

48:27

brain are connected to each other we're

48:29

gonna start with a simpler system we're

48:31

going to start with C elegans we have

48:33

its connect on we've mapped it out C

48:35

elegans flatworm has exactly 302 neurons

48:38

so you can actually count them and then

48:41

now you counted them and see how they

48:42

connect to each other we're trying to

48:44

figure out what they're for what they do

48:46

in the flatworm there is a paper that

48:49

came out I'm not sure if it's

48:51

wrecked or not theoretical physicists

48:52

remember but there's a claim that is

48:54

very interesting one that says they can

48:56

identify one of those neurons whose job

49:00

it is to tell the nematode whether it's

49:03

looking at itself or the rest of the

49:04

world is this thing in front of me is

49:07

this dirt does this water or is this

49:08

just my tail right this this one part of

49:12

one neuron its job is to sort of have a

49:16

little bit of self-awareness a little

49:18

bit of well this is me not the rest of

49:20

the world and you can see why if that

49:22

developed just through the natural

49:24

fluctuations and mutations of evolution

49:26

it would be an advantageous thing to

49:29

keep around we have much more highly

49:31

developed self-awareness and you can

49:33

imagine other steps along the way

49:35

Malcolm McIver who is a mechanical

49:37

engineer at Northwestern he studies fish

49:40

and how in particular fish sense their

49:44

surroundings so he points out that a

49:46

fish with its eyes eyes are very

49:48

ubiquitous in life they developed

49:50

multiple independent times in the course

49:52

of evolution but eyes aren't that great

49:54

if you're underwater you know you can

49:56

see tens of meters at most the

49:58

attenuation length of light is just not

50:00

that far and you're swimming at meters

50:03

per second so if you're a fish every

50:05

time you see something new you have

50:08

seconds to react to it maybe a second

50:10

right so the evolutionary pressure is to

50:13

make a decision really quickly is this

50:15

food is this friendly or is this foe and

50:18

I should run away so you don't need to

50:20

think too much if you're a fish but when

50:22

you hop onto land

50:23

now the attenuation length of photons is

50:26

kilometers you can see off to the

50:27

horizon you can see essentially forever

50:29

it's possible that you now see something

50:32

coming long before you need to react so

50:35

there's a new evolutionary pressure that

50:38

starts exerting itself that if you just

50:40

threw the randomness of evolution

50:42

develop the ability to contemplate

50:45

different hypothetical scenarios then

50:49

you have a new way of winning the

50:50

struggle for survival

50:52

that is to say up on land it pays to

50:54

develop an imagination not just an

50:57

awareness of yourself but the ability to

50:59

put yourself hypothetically into

51:01

different situations and say what is the

51:03

right thing

51:03

to do we don't know if any of this is

51:05

right okay we don't know how

51:07

consciousness evolved or even we don't

51:09

even know the right definition of

51:11

consciousness but you can imagine

51:13

stories like this will be put together

51:15

by the progress of biology and

51:18

neuroscience over the years the only

51:20

thing that I really care about I really

51:21

want to stress is that there's nothing

51:23

that we know about consciousness that is

51:25

incompatible with the idea that we are

51:28

made of the particles and fields of the

51:29

core theory obeying that equation here I

51:32

have a picture of my brain this is

51:35

actually my it's not my brain it's the

51:37

skull so I was in it's not to scale

51:40

either but I was in a machine M eg

51:45

Magneto and cephalo gram machine and

51:47

there were sensors placed on my skull

51:51

that looked for magnetic fields you've

51:54

seen fMRI pictures which are able very

51:56

very good at locating things spatially

51:58

in the brain but their time resolution

52:00

is not very good an M eg has great time

52:02

resolution because what happens is your

52:05

brain is made of particles in the core

52:07

theory in that includes your neurons so

52:09

when your neurons talk to each other

52:11

electrically charged particles race down

52:13

the neurons and as people who stood at

52:16

this desk long before me could tell you

52:18

when charged particles start moving you

52:20

create a magnetic field so this sense is

52:23

the magnetic field that those blue and

52:25

red splotches are the magnetic fields

52:27

the south and north poles coming in and

52:29

out of my skull when I think a thought

52:33

this is just a reminder of something you

52:35

already know which is that thoughts are

52:37

associated with real physical things

52:39

happening in your brain they're not

52:41

abstract things outside our physical

52:43

bodies there used to be a theory that

52:46

they were right Rene Descartes very

52:48

famously promulgated a theory of

52:50

mind-body dualism he was a skeptic and

52:53

he came up with a Co Cheeto ergo sum

52:55

argument I think therefore I am I cannot

52:58

doubt the existence of my mind because

53:00

it is the thing doing the doubting but

53:02

he says it's very easy for me to doubt

53:04

the existence of my body so if I can

53:06

doubt the existence of my body but not

53:08

the existence of my mind

53:09

they must be two separate things he

53:11

wrote books about this became very

53:13

famous died a tragic death in the cold

53:15

but that's a whole nother story so

53:17

there weren't a lot of tenured faculty

53:19

positions at the time of Descartes in

53:21

the 1600s so one had to be nice to

53:24

potential patrons so he got to know this

53:27

young lady

53:28

Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia his his

53:30

aim wasn't very good they were in exile

53:32

and didn't have a lot of money Princess

53:34

Elizabeth and her family but fortunately

53:36

Princess Elizabeth was a genius she was

53:38

a wonderful thinker very highly educated

53:40

she devoured de cartes books and she

53:43

didn't agree with what he said and they

53:45

struck up a correspondence which is a

53:47

wonderful thing to read I encourage you

53:48

to go look up princess Elizabeth's

53:50

correspondence with Descartes and

53:52

Elizabeth says look this mind-body stuff

53:54

I just don't know you're saying that

53:56

there's a mind that is literally

53:58

immaterial that has no location in space

54:02

and yet it clearly influences what our

54:05

bodies do when I talk presumably my mind

54:08

has something to do with the words I'm

54:09

saying

54:09

so Elizabeth wants to know how does the

54:12

immaterial mind causally affect the

54:16

material body and Descartes in response

54:19

drew pictures like this this is yeah it

54:21

was back in the days they were just

54:22

begin to open people up right so they

54:25

knew that your brain came in two

54:26

different hemispheres there seemed to be

54:28

one organ in the brain that there's only

54:30

one of them it was not broken into that

54:32

was the pineal gland that little

54:34

teardrop shaped thing right there so

54:36

Descartes says well you only have one

54:38

mind one soul so I bet that the soul

54:40

talks to your body via the pineal gland

54:43

yeah no one else believed that either in

54:45

the 1600s it was not a very effective

54:49

hypothesis for understanding what was

54:51

going on and so Elizabeth kept pushing

54:53

on him and he never really gave a very

54:55

good answer today we would have a much

54:58

sharper version of Elizabeth's question

55:01

remember this I know you love this

55:03

equation right

55:04

if Princess Elizabeth were here today

55:06

she would say Renee tell me how the

55:09

immaterial mind pushes around the

55:11

quantum fields of the core theory this

55:14

equation tells me what's going to happen

55:15

in the quantum fields of the core theory

55:18

without any reference to an immaterial

55:19

mind so you must be saying this equation

55:21

is wrong in some way tell me how and

55:25

there's still no answer to that

55:27

so the conclusion that I want to draw is

55:29

not that I understand what consciousness

55:30

is or how it came about but that we

55:32

should be able to understand it without

55:34

invoking violations of the physical laws

55:37

that make up you and me does that mean

55:41

that we are non autonomous robots well I

55:46

don't think so

55:47

so the philosophy that I try to

55:48

elucidate in the book is called poetic

55:50

naturalism the idea is that there's

55:52

naturalism says there's only one world

55:54

the natural world but poetic means

55:56

there's many ways of talking about the

55:58

world there's many different levels of

55:59

description whether it's atoms versus

56:01

gas in a room or emergent purpose for

56:05

the neck of the giraffe or even things

56:08

like making choices you can describe

56:11

yourself as a set of particles and

56:12

forces obeying the core theory or you

56:15

can describe yourself as a person and

56:17

people make choices if you choose to

56:20

describe yourself using only atoms and

56:23

molecules then there is no such thing as

56:25

free will and there's no such thing as

56:27

the ability to make a choice but if as

56:29

real actual people do you describe

56:32

yourself as a person then you can't help

56:34

but attribute to yourself the ability to

56:36

make choices so if you want to say can

56:39

free will the ability to make choices be

56:41

real and true even though we are made of

56:43

atoms yes of course it can in the same

56:45

way that any emergent property can be

56:48

real the different vocabularies work

56:51

within themselves you can't start a

56:53

sentence in one language and then end it

56:55

in another one and once you accept that

56:58

then the same thing goes true for more

57:01

judgmental value-laden propositions is

57:04

there right and wrong is there a way to

57:07

live in the world with meaning and

57:09

compassion well yes it's nowhere to be

57:12

found in the fundamental atoms but

57:14

nowhere to be found in funda madam's or

57:16

tables either or water right these are

57:19

higher level emergent properties and

57:20

caring and meaning and purpose or the

57:23

same kind of thing now that bothers

57:25

people because they want things like

57:28

right and wrong to be objective right

57:30

even the most hardcore scientifically

57:33

minded person wants to say well I will

57:34

someday do so much science that I will

57:37

tell you right from wrong I will

57:39

discover how to live as a human being

57:40

I'm here to say that it's never going to

57:42

happen more bad news

57:44

sorry the good news is that you can

57:46

choose what to label right and wrong and

57:50

no one can stop you you construct your

57:53

own morality the analogy I like to use

57:55

is think of the rules of chess the rules

57:58

of chess are not fixed by the laws of

58:00

physics we made them up we all agree on

58:03

that but that doesn't mean they're

58:05

arbitrary that doesn't mean you could

58:06

make up any old rules and they'd be just

58:08

as good when we made up the rules of

58:10

chess we had goals in mind and when we

58:13

make up the rules of right and wrong and

58:15

living together in the world we likewise

58:17

have goals in mind we will not always

58:20

agree there will always be people who

58:21

would rather play go than play chess we

58:24

might have to sort of come to an

58:26

understanding of what our overlap is but

58:29

that doesn't mean that we're adrift it

58:31

doesn't mean that just because the

58:32

universe doesn't tell us how to behave

58:34

there is no way to behave all right the

58:37

final piece of bad news I already sort

58:39

of foreshadowed this but you are all

58:41

going to die

58:43

so biologists like to study these

58:46

scaling relations how one biological

58:48

property depends on another one so it

58:50

turns out that larger animals live

58:52

longer but their hearts beat slower and

58:55

it is particulars for example these

58:59

effects cancel out in mammals very

59:01

roughly speaking every mammal is granted

59:04

one and a half billion heartbeats for

59:07

their lifetime on this axis you can

59:10

figure out you tell me how heavy an

59:12

object is a mammal is I will tell you

59:14

how fast its heart beats and how long

59:15

it's gonna live now we human beings

59:17

heart beats and you know once per second

59:19

right 60 or 70 times a minute so that

59:22

puts us at about 40 years and that's

59:25

about right that's how long we used to

59:27

live back in the state of nature of

59:29

course these days we have Obamacare and

59:31

the National Health and pasteurized milk

59:32

so we have increased our lifespan we

59:36

live twice as long as we should so that

59:38

gives us three billion heartbeats to our

59:41

lives before we die and if you believe

59:43

in the core theory do you believe that

59:45

we are made of particles obeying the

59:46

laws of physics then there is no life

59:48

after death there's no place for the

59:50

information that is contained in your

59:52

neurons to go when you die because I

59:54

think

59:54

neurons and the atoms that are there

59:56

they stay in your body even when you you

59:59

die and that can be sad you you might

60:02

want to be I would have liked to live

60:03

not maybe forever forever is a long time

60:05

but I think I could keep things

60:07

interesting for a few hundred thousand

60:08

years before they got boring I only get

60:11

three billion heartbeats and three

60:12

billion is an interesting number it's

60:14

sort of a big number but it's not that

60:15

big

60:16

I mean you've squandered a couple

60:18

thousand heartbeats just over the course

60:20

of this lecture knowing that you have

60:22

about 3 billion heartbeats allocated to

60:25

you makes every heartbeat seem precious

60:28

right it's not just like a little thing

60:30

that will grow into something after we

60:32

die because this is it every one of

60:34

those heartbeats is meaningful to you

60:36

because you only have a finite number so

60:40

the good news this is not going to sound

60:42

like good news after all that bad news

60:44

but the good news is on the one hand we

60:47

are very very small ok this is the

60:49

famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field an image

60:52

of galaxies if you take us telescope and

60:55

point it at the sky and you click the

60:58

shutter on the camera and you just leave

60:59

it open this is what you will see if

61:02

your telescope is the Hubble Space

61:03

Telescope this is what you will see our

61:06

universe is alive with galaxies our our

61:09

galaxy the Milky Way has about a hundred

61:11

billion stars before last week I was

61:15

able to say there's about a hundred

61:16

billion galaxies in the observable

61:18

universe I don't know if you following

61:19

the news but they discovered that the

61:21

density of galaxies is actually 20 times

61:23

higher than we thought it was there's

61:25

about two trillion galaxies in the

61:27

observable universe every one of these

61:29

dots even tiny dots that's a galaxy with

61:32

a hundred billion stars who knows how

61:34

many royal institutions they have where

61:35

there's a lecture going on there with a

61:37

picture of us up there we seem very

61:39

small that's the that's the last piece

61:42

of bad news the good news is we took

61:45

this picture right we're exactly there

61:49

you go

61:50

appreciate the good news we are very

61:52

very tiny insignificant the universe is

61:54

not about us if the universe was about

61:55

us there was some purpose to the world

61:58

that was for our greater glory we would

62:00

not be around a medium sized planet

62:03

around a medium sized star in a galaxy

62:05

with 100 billion stars in a universe

62:07

with two trillion galaxies

62:08

we'd be more central and if you look at

62:11

the ancient pictures of the world

62:12

we were always much more central than

62:14

the modern view had it despite that we

62:17

are the little part of the universe in

62:19

this age when things are complex and

62:21

interesting that has developed the

62:22

capacity for self-awareness and

62:24

reflection and thinking and rational

62:27

thought and writing books and buying

62:28

books by the way and that should make us

62:35

feel pretty good we don't always do very

62:36

well at it

62:37

I think both in my country in yours

62:39

there are examples in recent political

62:41

history where things have gone not right

62:45

but we have the ability to be rational

62:48

to think to invent to discover to create

62:50

new things to care about each other in

62:52

ways that other parts of the universe

62:54

just don't care about each other and

62:56

that's that capacity that we have as

62:58

fleeting as life is it's up to us what

63:02

to make of it the fact that we are made

63:04

of atoms and particles obeying the laws

63:05

of physics doesn't stop us from caring

63:08

about ourselves the rest of the world

63:10

our legacies the people next to us right

63:12

now so that's a choice that we can make

63:15

completely compatible with the laws of

63:17

physics I urge you all to choose very

63:19

wisely thank you

63:26

you

We can see the dishonesty of atheismnthecity by claiming the Carroll stated things that support him when Carroll does not. What we see here is the splicing of googling that atheismnthecity engages in. He/she clearly has no grasp of physics and his/her own words show this. If there were no such thing as causes, then nothing could happen. We would all be stuck in a universal pattern that is determined. Each one of us would be doing, saying and thinking the same thing. The idea has many problems. Even patterns have a cause and effect. What started the pattern? Why is the pattern set in such a pace? Can the pattern change? If all is set set in a pattern, then how is choice even possible? The ideeas of Carroll and atheismnthecity can only support an existence like that of the Matrix in the 1999 hit movie. Concepts such as Global warming would not make sense because there is no cause or effect. Do you see the absurdity in Carroll's and atheismnthecity's thinking?

One can refute something using the Bible if the ideologies being criticized come from the Bible. Atheismnthecity does not seem to understand this. If he/she criticizes suffering and God's relation to it, then the BIble has to be used because it describes the reason why suffering exists in a universe created by a benevolent God. Atheismnthecity claims that there was no Adam and Eve, but in my reply to part 3, I have showed that this is not true. We all originate from a set of two parents. This is genetically proven. I have provided the evidence for this and atheismnthecity has not addressed it. Similarly, I have provided evidence using physics and philosophy and atheismnthecity has ignored it. Nothing was asserted. I explained and supported those explanations. It is clear that atheismnthecity is not reading or understanding my replies. I have quoted all of his/her content to show readers what I am responding to. In return, he/she just cherry picks what he/she wants to address. Moreover, he/she does not even address them. Instead, he/she resorts to name calling and claiming that I did not refute his/her posts. This is a sign that he/she has become desperate.

Atheismnthecity claims that he/she is educated, but when asked if he/she had a degree, he/she did not answer directly and simply stated that one does not need a degree:

You don't need a philosophy degree to properly show theism, Catholicism, and his high-school level arguments are false. I can easily show that. My arguments are too sophisticated for him, but at first glance they seem easy to refute. It's a mistake many make.

I personally do not believe that atheismnthecity is a real atheist. To date, I have not engaged with an alleged atheist who has demonstrated so much stupidity and poor understanding. In fact, I am starting to think that this person may be a teenager. The inability to admit that he/she is wrong in light of the facts may be an indication. Only teens seem themselves and invulnerable or invincible. This is a psychological defense mechanism. I have demonstrated my academic credentials to him/her. To date, he/she has not offered his/her's. This is because he/she does not have any academic credentials. In a state of delusion, he/she claims that he/she showed my arguments to fail completely. On the contrary, his/her own arguments are self-refuting. I simply pointed the disaster out. The fire and smoke was already there, I just showed it to everyone else. This is why I was able to respond so quickly to his/her posts. They are child's play and offer no challenge whatsoever.

Next, he/she shows his/she ignorance of the attributes of God. I explained why it is possible for God to create a rock He cannot lift. There are many ways to address this paradox. God by definition can do anything. If He created the universe from nothing with the laws of physics that allow for mass, weight, matter and gravity to exist. then it is illogical to assume that this God has no control of them. How can the God who created gravity be unable to control it? Truth be told, anyone in outer space or in zero-g can lift a rock that on earth is too heavy to lift. Also, Christians believe that God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. This would be logically impossible by human standards. How can God be man at the same time? Yet, He is! God is not subject to a man-made social constructs. According to PhilosophyBasics.com, it defines logic as:

Logic (from the Greek "logos", which has a variety of meanings including word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason or principle) is the study of reasoning, or the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. It attempts to distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning.

Notice how logic exists only to provide good reasoning from bad reasoning. It is not meant to describe ontological realities. Atheismnthecity and those who think God is stuck in a logic box created by man do not understand what logic really is. What they engage in is what is called in psychology as representativeness heuristics. Like is not always unto like, so to speak. Next, atheismnthecity erroneously think that one of my former professors supports him. This is not the case. Pigliucci simply gave his opinion that some believe God is subject to logic and do not see an issue with this in regards to God's omnipotence. This is all he stated. Look at the tweet yourself and see. No one was "called out" on anything by him. Notice how he wrote, "many theologians agree," and not all theologians.

Next, atheismnthecity goes on with his/her strawman. He/she claims that I did not understand his/her argument, well you be the judge, he/she wrote:

"The fine tuning argument does indeed suggest God can only create humans one way. If God could create humans a trillion physical ways, then there's a trillion ways humans could physically exist, and the fine tuning argument is rendered false."

As you can see, he/she claims that the fine-tuning arguments demonstrate that God can only create humans in one manner. This, of course, makes no sense. The fine tuning argument does not even posit this. Atheismnthecity continues with his/her strawman:

"The fine-tuning argument implies god can only create us one way because if god could create us 100 trillion different physical ways, then there are 100 trillion different physical ways we could have also existed naturally. The point I'm making hits upon the fundamental physical make up of all life: quarks and electrons. It's not about whether god could create different kind of animals."

This is just absurd. Nothing in the fine-tuning argument suggests that God can only create in one way. To my knowledge, atheismnthecity is the only alleged atheist who has ever made this claim. We can see here that he/she lacks formal education in philosophy. He/she simply does not understand at all. Philosopher Dennis Bonnette called atheismnthecity out on this stupidity:

Bonnette showed that atheismnthecity simply is not educated and is working with straw man argumentation. Next, atheismnthecity quotes Hitchens on God as a "very capricious, very cruel, very incompetent.." I addressed this in my part 3 where I wrote:

"No evolutionary biologist claims that the evolutionary process is cruel. That would be a human judgment based on social constructs and not sicence. Evolution is US. We are a part of it. To say that it is cruel is ridiculous. Evolution does not have to answer to us or any rganism. It is a blind and random process. As Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson ofen states, 'The Universe does not owe us an explanation.' Similarly, volution does not owe us an explanation or excuse. It just is and we have to live through it. It is neither clumsy, perfect or imperfect. Evolution works based on variables and factors that affect those variables."

Hitchens and atheismnthecity are extremely silly in this regard. They are applying social constructs and emotion to a blind and random process. We can see that atheismnthecity has no formal academic training. Atheismncity claims that I do not understand science or philosophy, yet we see that he/she is the one who has no understanding. I provided evidence from top scientists and even gave mathematical equations which he/she did not even address. This is possibly because he/she did not understand them. Next, I showed that atheismnthecity did not understand the graphs and surveys regarding the decline of atheism. I explained here that the news on Russia was presented simply as a supplement. He/she does not seem to understand this. This is exactly like when he links Youtube videos. I do not protest them because I see that he/she trying to use them to support his/her point. Why he is attacking the Russia news is beyond me. He/she then claims that my degree is fake while claiming that my former professor called me out. I have demonstrated my degrees via the CunyFirst system. To date, atheismnthecity has not provided any documentation of his/her accredited degrees. We have seen nothing at all. Moreover, Pigliucci's comment was an opinion and was not even sent to me.

Catholic philosopher Catholicgadfly has even asked atheismnthecity questions which he/she is unable to answer. The reason why he/she cannot answer is because the questions will show his/her reasoning to be off:

Next, Pigluicci "liked" a tweet where Catholicgadfly describes atheismnthecity as a troll. This shows Pigliucci agrees.

My apologies. It was this troll @AtheismNTheCity who is including you in this. There are some who do not see any problems with the idea that God cannot do things that entail logical contradictions. However, there are those who believe differently. Nothing is set in stone.

<<13) All religions appear man made

His responses to the points I made here are perhaps the most laughable. He writes,

Not all religions describe themselves as revealed. The majority of religions understand themselves as part of a culture or a philosophy. We see this among African tribes, Asian religions and even among Native Americans. The author never showed that archeology contradicts the Bible because no such thing exists. If the author is privy to information that universities in Israel are not, he/she should share it. Note how the author relies on a YouTube video instead of peer review journals to make his/her claim. It is laughable. The video itself has a misleading title which tells me that it is just propaganda that someone is trying to push to others.

Almost all religions have a prophet or a spiritual leader who gets insights from the spirit world. The Shaman in South America, for example, drink Ayahuasca which they think has magical powers that allows them to see into the spirit world where revelations occur. African tribes do similar things. I did show that archeology contradicted the Bible and we know this is true. He has a nasty habit of declaring I didn't show X when I clearly did. The video I linked to is a documentary by Israel Finklestein, who's a famous Israeli archaeologist and who's written numerous best sellers that have rewritten Isaraeli history, his most famous work being The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts, which shows many (not all) of the Bible's stories are not historical. That he laughs at the documentary indicates he didn't even watch it.

Here is a video showing study abroad MA program for those looking to study the archaeology of the Bible. If the Bible was false and there was no archaeology to back up the stories, no reputable university would have such a program.

Interestingly, Israel Finkelstein is in the video he linked to! This shows he cannot dismiss such a person. Also I never said there was no archeology backing up the Bible. I clearly stated, "My position is not that everything in the Bible is historically false. My view is that many of the Bible's historical claims are false. The Jewish enslavement in Egypt, the exodus, wandering Sinai for 40 years, the military conquest of Canaan — the central stories in the books of Moses (who didn't exist), none of them have been shown to be archaeological by science (and this includes a historical Adam and Eve)."

I even emphasized "many" in my original response so that he'd understand the nuance and as usual he completely missed it. This guy is a complete dotard. Even when I emphasize nuance it goes right through him. I guess it's pointless. I have to write to him as if he's a baby.

I provided more than one line regarding the accuracy of the Bible. The author apparently did not bother to view all of them. Many ancient societies have recorded astrological events, however, a recent study showed the biblical accounts were more accurate. The author could read the studies which I linked to the posts. Moreover, the author is running into a strawman again. I refuted his/her claim that archeology contradicts the Bible and never made the claim that astrological events say religion is true. The Bible is not religion. Can you see how silly this author is and how bad he/she is at reasoning? Defending the accuracy of accounts of the Bible in relation to archeology is not an endorsement of any religion. So the author's comment about Chinese religions being true is extremely stupid and reflective of the cognitive lethargy the author engages in.

He never provided any archaeological evidence to show that the Jewish enslavement in Egypt, the exodus, wandering Sinai for 40 years, and the military conquest of Canaan were real. Archeology has shown that there's either no evidence of those things ever happening, or there is positive evidence telling a different story. This is one of the main things Israel Finkelstein has shown who is in the video Sacerdotus linked! And is he saying eclipse accuracy shows that the all of the Bible's stories are true? What kind of nonsense is that? He never even showed evidence it was more accurate, and if so, it doesn't prove the Bible's stories are true. Only bad reasoning could assert such a thing. And if it isn't supposed to show the Bible's stories are true, why even mention it? It's completely irrelevant to whether archeology supports all of the Bible's historical claims which is Sacerdotus's view. He has yet to show that.

Then he links to some popular articles from news sources that claim archeology confirms some the Bible's accounts. I've never denied that some of the Bible is true. I've denied that all of it is true. So linking to an article that a few stories took place in cities that actually existed, does nothing to refute my point. He's too stupid to get that. so he has to waste his time attacking a strawman.

Next, the author claims that my response is the "stupidest response ever." This is typical of someone who has run out of answers. The author claims that humanity could have handled knowledge of evolution, DNA and germs centuries ago. He/she is speculating here. History shows that the unknown scares people. As stated in my previous reply, natives did not take well to the appearance of white men. During the plague, citizens believed it was a curse or a demon who was at fault. Even today, some have trouble accepting evolution. Does this author deny this? Moreover, some even have trouble with climate change facts! The idea that people cannot handle hard facts is not fictitious. We see it today. The author demonstrates it as well by relying on sophism rather than facts on his/her website. Acknowledging history, physics, theology as I presented them will harm his/her cognitive bias. This is why he/she became very defensive in his/her replies.

And what do we do when someone can't handle the facts? Do we lie to them instead? No. We tell the truth anyway. We show them the evidence whether they like it or not. I'm not speculating here (which is exactly what Sacerdotus does when he says a primate will run into a predator if they falsely think one is in the bushes — but hey, he's ok with double standards as we've established). If people can't handle evolution now, or when Darwin discovered it, then why did god use evolution to create us in the first place? Why not just create us as we are now? You see, if you're going to argue that something like evolution is too hard to handle now, then it was too hard to handle 2000 years ago, and might be too hard to handle 2000 years from now, and so we're never going to be prepared for it. Why use evolution at all? Sacerdotus's answer fails.

The unknown scares people, yet we're all faced with it everyday. If god revealed that the punishment for witchcraft or working on the Sabbath was death, I'm sure that scared a lot of people a whole lot more than DNA or heliocentricism would. His argument is so paltry. And there's no sophism on my website. My arguments are just too complex for Sacerdotus to handle. He's welcome on my site to debate me on anything any time he wants.

Furthermore, the suggestion that religion contained scientific ignorance is just absurd. It was the Catholic Church that gave us science. Friar Roger Baco formulated the scientific method that we use today. Priest Copernicus gave us heliocentrism. I can go on and on showing how the Catholic Church created and contributed to the modern understanding of science that we have today. Even hospitals and psychology have their origin in the Catholic Church; not to mention, schools and universities. Again, this author simply does not research anything and runs with his/her fallacious narratives. This is why the title of volume 1 of my book is "Atheism Is Stupid." It really is when you vet it against the facts. The content found on this author's website is demonstrative of the stupidity atheism is.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Religion didn't give us science, religious people gave us science, and that was because 500 years ago you had to be religious or you could go to jail or be executed. There was no freedom of belief back then, because of religion. I just wrote about that here: "But Many Great Scientists Believed In God!"There were laws on the books in many European countries that prescribed the death penalty for not believing. So everyone had to be religious then, at least publicly. And religions had a monopoly on institutions. There was no separation of church and state until 1776, and that was only in the US. And once it became legal and socially acceptable to be an atheist, what did we see? We saw the floodgates open up to atheists in science and ever since the time of Einstein, atheists have dominated the sciences in the Western world.

That Sacerdotus can't tell the difference between religion and religious people, and is ignorant about the fact that everyone had to be religious prior to the mid 1800s or face jail, death, or career suicide, shows how pathetic his reasoning skills are. I can't believe I'm even spending time on him. He is indeed high school level apologetics.

Notice how the author ignores the birth of Christ as a direct revelation from God. Christ is God, the second person of the Holy Trinity who became incarnate and walked among men, women, and children. Jesus is and was a historical figure. There is no dispute here. One can claim that He was just a man, but we have to see the logic regarding why His Church survived. If Jesus was just a mere man, no one would risk his/her life for Him. No Christian would risk being thrown into the lions or face persecution for a mere mortal. Remember, other "messiahs" were around before, during and after Christ claiming to be the "chosen one." These cults died away when their leaders passed. However, Christ's Church lived on with Peter as the first pope up to now with Pope Francis at the helm. We can see that this person of Christ was so impactful and "walked the walked," so to speak, that followers continued His mission even after He ascended to Heaven. The author fails to take into account this impactful revelation. No other religion can claim the success Catholicism has.

Notice how I ignore the birth of Christ as a direct revelation from god? Um, excuse me? It is not a fact that Jesus was a revelation from god, nor that his birth was immaculate, nor that he even existed. This guy ignorantly seems to think that the Bible is a history book, and that we can take it as truth at face value. This is Ray Comfort level apologetics. You know Islam spread faster than Christianity did in its first century. It went from a small tribe in Mecca all the way into Spain in less than a hundred years. Does that prove Mohammad was a real prophet? Of course not.

In response to my asking for proof knowledge comes from god, he writes,

If God created all things, then only He can know everything about it. It is logically sound that God would be the source of knowledge. If you want to know about Ford vehicles, will you go to Kia? It would not make sense to do so because Kia is a different company and designs vehicles differently. One would logically go to the source of the product to learn more about it. Hence, God can only be the one source of knowledge.

Yes — IF. Big if there. That's like saying IF Christianity is true, then Christianity is true. A tautology! His "proof" literally relies on a conditional "if" statement that asks us to assume the very thing I asked him to prove! That is not proof, it's presupposing. There is absolutely no way he has a degree in philosophy given the utter absurdity of his arguments. I asked him to prove knowledge comes from god, and he assumes knowledge comes from god to do so! Epic failure at logic proving he can't have a degree.

It makes perfect sense since we are called to preach the Good News to all the world (Matthew 28:19). This is a Christian's job. We are to go out and share the news of Jesus Christ to all the world and provide a reason for our hope (1 Peter 3:15). As a former atheist who holds degrees in the sciences and philosophy, I do exactly this. I refute atheist nonsense wherever it is found and show Catholics and other religious people how stupid atheism really is and that they can easily refute it. Look how fast I refuted this author's nonsense; not once, but twice! It is child's play to me. I have been there and done that, so to speak. No atheist can present an argument that I have not used myself during my years as an atheist. To me, it would be like someone teaching me the multiplication table after I earned several college degrees. There is no such thing as "high school level apologetics," by the way. This shows how ignorant this author is.

Well then it makes perfect sense for atheists to spend time refuting religion. Religious people are always trying to convince us they are right, some of them through force and violence. Look at what's going on in Russia now with atheists being discriminated against from the new law that makes it illegal to “insult the feelings of religious believers.” One atheist blogger in Russia was arrested for playing Pokemon Go in a church, and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. It makes perfect sense that people like me who want to live free from religion's authority fight against the inanity of religious belief — demonstrated by Sacerdotus in perfect clarity. I can't possibly believe he has a degree in science and philosophy given how stupid he is on the subjects. Religious belief seems to have rotted his brain's ability to be reasonable. Just look at how he assumed god existed when I asked him for proof. If that's not indicative of his complete inability to be logical, I don't know what is. He didn't refute anything. He made the most facile arguments plagued with obvious ignorance which makes him think that he's refuted my arguments.

The author then claims that he/she focuses on religion because of discrimination against others or because of killing. This is just unfounded. In fact, atheist leaders such as Stalin hold the record for the most mass murders. A study from Case Western Reserve University and Babson College even found that atheists are psychopaths. It seems that we should be more worried about atheists, than religious people. May I remind the author of the recent attack in Texas by an atheist. He gunned down 27 people without concerned, many of them children. How about Hicks who gunned down Muslims? The author's hate for religious people must have a psychological root. Perhaps he/she was offended or hurt by a religious person and is holding a grudge. His/her opinion is based on prejudice, not facts. The author claims to want to "destroy religious belief," but he/she clearly has failed in that endeavor.

We have a Right wing party in the US that wants to turn the US into a Christian theocracy. Just look at what vice president Mike Pence and senate candidate Roy Moore want to do. Listen to what they stand for. If it wasn't for the hard work of secularists keeping them at bay, they'd take over and legalize discrimination against not only atheists, but many non-Christians. As far as Stalin, he didn't kill in the name of atheism. He killed in the name of communism. They are not the same thing. Countries with high numbers of atheists have some of the lowest crime rates in the world. The least religious countries are among the safest and happiest worldwide.

Take homicide. According to the United Nations' 2011 Global Study on Homicide, of the 10 nations with the highest homicide rates, all are very religious, and many — such as Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador and Brazil — are among the most theistic nations in the world. Of the nations with the lowest homicide rates, nearly all are very secular, with seven ranking among the least theistic nations, such as Sweden, Japan, Norway and the Netherlands.

The rate of prisoners who are atheist is far below the percentage of the population. So no, you don't have to worry about atheists. You have to worry about theists. Theists kill much more than atheists do today, just look at terrorism. One atheist mass shooter who actually appears to have killed because of his wife doesn't show a trend.

Verdict: Sacerdotus fails to understand that my argument is that many of the Bible's historical claims are not backed up by evidence or there is evidence that contradicts it. I don't need to show all the stories aren't true to make my point. The main stories are not historical: The Jewish enslavement in Egypt, the exodus, wandering Sinai for 40 years, the military conquest of Canaan — all shown false or inconsistent with evidence by prominent Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein, whom Sacerdotus even links to! Also the most atheist and secular a countries are associated with less crime, and the most religious countries are associated with more crime. This refutes any claim that atheism leads to violence. Sacerdotus has failed to refute this argument that all religions are man made.>>

Sacerdotus:

We can see more argumentum ad infinitum here. Atheismnthecity continues to restate already refuted points. It is beyond me what he/she hopes to accomplish by reposting what was already refuted by science and philosophy.

Atheismnthecity writes something that is completely stupid and shows that he/she does not understand the difference between a "revealed religion" and "revelations." A revealed religion is a religion that is allegedly revealed by God or is founded by God. A revelation is just a vision or external information given. By atheismnthecity's logic, the book of Revelation would be a revealed religion. The mentioning of Shamans and Ayahuasca is a false conflation. A Google search shows this:

We can see that atheismnthecity is allergic to the facts and does not own a dictionary. If he/she did own a dictionary, he/she would not have made this stupid mistake by conflation two distinct words. Again, he/she is arguing from a straw man.

Moreover, atheismnthecity either has selective memory or is a liar. He/she claims:

"Also I never said there was no archeology backing up the Bible. I clearly stated, My position is not that everything in the Bible is historically false. My view is that many of the Bible's historical claims are false."

Can we say cognitive dissonance? Atheismnthecity cannot keep a point. He/she has contradicted him/herself numerous times and has demonstrated a poor grasp of the facts. Again, I believe this person may be a teenager and not an adult. The puerile behavior, lack of college-level knowledge and Dunning-Kruger tendencies seem to indicate this. Even my former professor stated that atheismnthecity's reliance on calling me stupid shows he/she is not intelligent.

There is a lot of “stupid” being thrown around in this discussion. Usually a sign that the discussion itself is not terribly intelligent

Dr. Pigliucci and other professors have taught me how to keep my composure during a debate and how to argue using reason and not emotional outbursts. Atheismnthecity clearly is not intelligent and relies on emotional outbursts of anger in order to get attention when he/she has been unable to refute a point. In regards to biblical studies and archeology, I have already provided proof that many of the events of the Bible are supported by archeology from scholarly sites and the university of Tel Aviv. To believe otherwise is delusional and anti-semitic. This makes sense since bigots are typically cognitively deficient. Atheismnthecity has shown us nothing to the contrary. As expected, atheismnthecity engages in the fallacy apriorism. He/she refuses to accept any facts presented because they disagree with his/her bias.

On numerous occasions, atheismnthecity has demonstrated that he/she is allergic to the facts. He/she has engaged in word salads, pigeon chess, ad hominem, the fallacy of apriorism and so on. It is no wonder why he/she is scared to formally debate me on You Tube.

The work is already on my site. You have been refuted, hence, your last resort was ad hominem, calling me gay and other things. You are defeated. Have a formal debate with me, provide identification and academic credentials see https://t.co/u5jLYsloBX

Clearly, you have not and many, including atheists have called you out on this. Why do you persist on a delusion? I invited you to a formal debate and am still waiting for tour credentials. I do not have time to jump from site to site to post comments.

To date, atheismnthecity has avoided my challenged to formally debate me on You Tube. All he/she has to do is send proof of his/her academic credentials and identification. He/she has yet to follow through. Instead, he/she hides behind Twitter and his/her poorly written blog playing "keyboard warrior." If he/she thinks that I am stupid, uneducated and so on, then a formal debate on You Tube would be a breeze. However, we know this is not the reality. He/she bit off more than he/she can chew when he/she messaged me and I was made aware of his/her disastrous 13 reasons post. I have demonstrated that I know way more than he/she can possibly know. There is no way that he/she can win a debate against me. This is why he/she is afraid to accept my challenge. Atheismnthecity is no threat to me and has demonstrated this reality with his/her fallacious replies which exhibit an reluctance to adopt the facts. The rest of his/her reply is already addressed in my previous posts. I am now sure why atheismnthecity insists on argumentum ad infinitum. Repeating lies do not make them into truths. Hitler learned this and atheismntheciy is learning it now. Facts are facts and cannot be contradicted. You can either ignore them or distort them as atheismnthecity does. If one does this, then one by default has lost a debate. Asking why did not God make us with knowledge of evolution or provided this knowledge is a non-sequitur. I already explained to atheismnthecity the concept of divine pedagogy. God has guided man throughout his existence by revealing things that man can process. There is some truth to the statement atheismnthecity made about the unknown scaring people. This is perhaps why atheists are afraid to process the concept of God without bias or filters. In fact, the Myrna Brind study has demonstrated that atheists intentional block concepts on God when presented to them. This is an indication of sophophobia.

Furthermore, we see atheismnthecity's lack of knowledge on the history of science. Religion has played a big role in science. The Catholic Church elevated it from a trade to an academic field. Had atheismnthecity gone to college, he/she would have learned these facts. Moreover, he/she persists in ignorance by echoing common misconceptions about the Catholic Church and science. The Church never executed anyone. Local municipalities did. These took upon themselves that role of judge, jury and executioner. The Catholic Church in many instances had tried to prevent these executions with no success. I address this in my book and provide historical documentation. However, since atheismnthecity is allergic to facts, he/she will continue to live in ignorance. Separation of Church and State has existed in primitive forms prior to 1776. We see it in the case of King Henry VIII and King Ferdinand who often ignored the pope to do their own things. I am not sure how atheismnthecity thinks otherwise. We can see his/her lack of formal college education in this regard. Moreover, the idea that atheists dominate the sciences is unfounded. A study by Rice University has shown that the majority of scientists are not atheist. Einstein himself was not an atheist. He believed in God.

Next, atheismnthecity again rejects the Bible while at the same time bringing it up in his/her criticism. What does he/she expect me to use to address a criticism of the Bible? If he/she claims a biblical verse is a myth do I respond with math? It is clear that atheismnthecity does not understand how a discussion works. If one brings up a topic as a point of discussion, the response to that topic must be the same topic. This is why when atheismnthecity brings up physics, I respond with physics. When he/she brings up philosophy, I respond with philosophy and so on. Next, we see h athesmnthecity fails to understand what a tautology is. Stating if God exists is not a tautology. It is a statement that is being used to connect another point. If God created all things, then it follows that only He can know everything about what was created. Again, we see atheismnthecity's poor grasp of philosophy and logic. This shows us that atheismnthecity has difficulty following what he/she reads. The paragraph that he/she quotes from me is making the point that the designer is the only one who can know the specs of his/her creation/invention. If atheismnthecity fails to understand this simply paragraph, then this speaks volumes of his/her reading comprehension level as non-conforming with higher education standards.

Atheists can spend time "refuting" religion, but from my experience as a former atheist, they simply show their misconceptions. I have yet to find an atheistic argument that is strong. Notice how I easily refuted atheismnthecity's 13 reasons and his/her follow up commentary. Atheism is the absence of reason. It posits claims that cannot be proven. Atheismnthecity has demonstrated this inability to prove his/her claims and the inability to prove that atheism is a valid supposition. In reality, it is not. Atheism is void of fact and reason. It is simply a choice not to believe in God. This choice is often made out of emotional distress and not proper rational reflection. This is why I and countless other atheists have abandoned atheism.Among them are Leah Libresco who was an avid atheist who participated at atheist events. She was received into the Catholic Church a few years ago. Atheism robs the mind of reason and intelligence. Notice how atheismnthecity lacks any foundation in science and philosophy. He/she can attack me all he/she wants, but my academic record speaks for itself. I also have professors who can attest to my academic abilities. He/she does not. The fact that he/she denies that big bang theory, believes special relativity posits an eternal universe when Hawking explained that it does not, shows that atheismnthecity has no clue or understanding about science. Moreover, the fact that atheismnthecity believes that philosophical axioms are scientific proof shows his/her poor understanding of what philosophy is. It is clear that atheismnthecity has to file a police report. Atheism has robbed him/her of any intellectual capacity and ability to reason. Again, his/her own posts show this. All people are bullied or harassed, not just atheists. Christians are killed worldwide. In fact, studies show that they are the most persecuted group. Atheists have it easy in comparison.

Atheismnthecity then uses the old false correlation fallacy by claiming that theists commit more crimes than atheists. This is simply not true. Atheismnthecity and other atheists who rely on this false correlation are not aware that correlation is not causation. This is a fundamental rule of thumb in science. We can see how atheismnthecity does not have any understanding of science. There are statistics that show atheist countries have high murder rates:

Moreover, the suggestion that the atheist population in prison is less than theist population and this shows theism breeds criminals is poor reasoning and a poor understanding of statistic. Atheismnthecity is obviously unaware of the law of numbers. A sample size will aways reflect the overall population size. In other words, if there are more theists in prison and less atheists, this is because there are more theists in the general population than there are atheists. The statistic would then reflect that there would be more theists in prison than atheists. Similarly, if there are 100 people in a town and 90 are white while 10 are black, the statistics will show that the white will be the majority in any statistic. This is because the pool of whites is much larger and more representative of the population. This is statistics. We can see that atheismnthecity has no college-level education. If he/she did, he/she would not make the faulty argument regarding theists, atheists and prison.

Verdict: Atheismnthecity has simply restated the points that were already refuted by me. He/she has engaged in straw man argumentation, argumentum ad infinitum, the fallacy of apriorism and special pleading. By doing this, he/she has shown no grasp of science, philosophy, history or statistics. I have provided evidence related to the topic he/she has brought up and he/she has simply ignored it. This is done because he/she is not able to directly address my refutation. With each statement, atheismnthecity has demonstrated poor reading comprehension which leads to his/her strawman argumentation as well as a distortion of my words and the words of others such as Carroll. On more than one occasion, I have shown how the content atheismnthecity presented as evidence did not support his/her claims. His/her claims that I did not refute his/her post is self-refuting. If I did not refute it, then why did he/she take the time to write replies?

<<In summary

He actually writes,

I do not think I refuted this author's post, I actually did. This is why it is one of the most popular posts on my site. Over 5,000 views already! It rose in popularity within an hour of being posted. I have gotten praise from both theists and atheists on it. It seems that the author is "anally injured" and is attempting to save face after I destroyed his/he poor reasons to be an atheist. Even others have criticized his/her poor post:

No he did not. It was very easy for me to show that he didn't. My original post is really supposed to summarize my reasons for being an atheist. It isn't supposed to give the full explanation for each of them, otherwise it would have been a book. That's why I included so many hyperlinks in it, and it seems he read not a single one of them. There's no injury on my part. I will debate Sacerdotus anytime he wants. His low level of apologetics is truly high school level. I've given dozens of examples in this rebuttal of why that is the case. He has no idea what he's talking about and I've debated far more sophisticated people than him. The fact that he refuses to come to my site to debate me is evidence he's too scared.

And he has a reputation among atheists of using fake accounts to comment on his tweets. This would be the saddest behavior if true. If he was so confident he refuted me he'd come to my site like hundreds of theists have before. I'm not going to waste money on his silly book because I can easily tell his arguments are really bad. The reviews are horrible. Don't waste your time with this charlatan. His degree is fake and it's obvious to anyone with in depth knowledge of modern science and philosophy.

Final verdict: Sacerdotus is definitely more stupid than previously thought. And that brings me to this meme:

This meme is so true and it's emblematic of what's going on here in the debate. Saying things like "causality doesn't exist" or that "all moments of time exist" sounds like nonsense to people ignorant of science. Understanding these things relies on deeper knowledge of science and philosophy, beyond the popular level understanding Sacerdotus has. Semantics is also a problem. The word "cause" is useful in everyday life, but fundamentally, things are not caused in the way we typically think of them. That means physicists use the word cause all the time, but it doesn't mean they mean it in the colloquial sense. This is a major reason why these kinds of deep philosophical discussions are so hard to have.

Sacerdotus just doesn't have the knowledge capable of having such an adult discussion. His reasoning is infantile, as a recent comment on my blog stated. He shoots himself in the foot so regularly that he has no feet anymore. For example, the claim that there is no suffering because it's a social construct is itself a social construct, which negates the claim. No one with a degree in philosophy could make such an elementary mistake. I will debate him anytime on any platform, but I will not agree to his ridiculous rules. He cannot have the sole rights to the material. I get to reproduce it on my blog so as to ensure he doesn't edit it in a way that manipulates what I said or wrote. And he doesn't get to ask for credentials because he's not capable of demonstrating he has an actual degree. His arguments are too infantile to allow that.

His recent reviews of me just assert the same bulls**t nonsense that I already refuted and really are him just ranting falsely about how ignorant I am in science and philosophy, which of course is absurd since I know way more than he does. He'd get an F in any philosophy course for sure, his lack of critical analysis ensures that. As I just tweeted,

And professor Massimo Pigliucci liked the tweet! He recognizes the truth of it.>>

Sacerdotus:

In summary:The exchange between myself and alleged atheist atheismnthecity has been fun. Atheismnthecity made my job easier by posting arguments I have already heard of as an atheist which led to me easily refuting them. As a former atheist, there is no argument out there in favor of atheism that I have not already used myself. This is why atheism is on the way out. Atheism seems fun and exciting at first. One feels the thrill of being a "rebel." However, after a while and further education, one realizes that atheism is just a lot of hot air. Like flatulence, it spreads around strongly and engulfs everyone, but after a while, it dissipates into nothing. The same can be said of atheismnthecity's "arguments." He/she believes them to be strong, but they are not. I have demonstrated that when vetted against science and philosophy, atheismnthecity's "arguments" dissipate into nothing. He/she gives us a lot of words, but no thought or logic behind them. They are void of any intelligentia and substance. In a formal debate, atheismnthecity would not last. I, William Lane Craig or even another atheist who accepts mainstream science can easily destroy his/her arguments. Atheismnthecity claims that I did not refute his/her arguments. This is said out of an attempt to save face as he/she has failed miserably in his/her "arguments." We can see atheismnthecity's lack of confidence when he/she states:

"My original post is really supposed to summarize my reasons for being an atheist. It isn't supposed to give the full explanation for each of them..."

By stating this, atheismnthecity is excusing the bad arguments presented in the post. Summary or not, those 13 reasons were reasons for not becoming an atheist. Anyone who loves philosophy and science would run away from atheism if those 13 reasons were used to sell atheism to others. They are so bad that I have decided to include them in a future book on atheism. I believe that this book will be very instrumental in assisting theists with those alleged atheists who push the nonsense that atheismnthecity pushes. Atheismnthecity claims that he will debate me whenever I want, but I have shown above in my embedded tweets that I have invited him/her to a formal debate and he/she has not responded. Is he/she scared as in the case of alleged atheist William Hounslow who blogs as the fake "Rosa Rubicondior" and has been slandering me since he ran away from debating me? Is he/she scared to debate me like atheist authors Dan Arel or Michael Sherlocke? Is he/she afraid to debate me like the alleged atheist Artie who blogs as Freeatheism? Is he/she afraid to debate me like America Atheists advocate David Viviano who hosted the now defunct "Atheist Hangouts" podcast? It seems clear to me that this is the case. Atheismnthecity is afraid to debate me formally. All I request is proof of his/her identity, proof of academic credentials and abidance to proper conduct in a formal debate. This is not difficult to do. I have high standards when it comes to formal debates. I will not debate just any loud barking dog on the street. Atheismnthecity has demonstrated that he/she is all bark and no bite. He/she has demonstrated no formal college-level education and has projected this on me by claiming that I engage in low-level apologetics. He/she has demonstrated a lack of respect for academia and has even claimed to be more knowledgeable than Dr. Kaku, Dr. Krauss and others who have doctoral degrees. This claim is completely absurd. His/her own replies have demonstrated that he/she has an elementary level understanding of philosophy and science. Countless times I have demonstrated how his/her replies are erroneous when compared to science and philosophy. This is why he/she resorts to slander. Remember what Socrates stated about losers in a debate resorting to slander. We see this in his/her lie about me using fake accounts. As expected, he/she is relying on lies propagated by William Hounslow. After running away from debating me, Hounslow resorted to slandering me even to the point of claiming that I was expelled from seminary, have a different name, and use different accounts. This harassment led to Twitter banning him for life from their network. More recently, he was banned from Google Plus.See:http://www.sacerdotus.com/2013/08/rosa-rubicondior-suspended-again.html?m=1http://www.sacerdotus.com/2017/11/fake-atheist-troll-rosa-rubicondior.html

The claims that I use fake accounts are unfounded. Notice how atheismnthecity does not show proof. All he/she does is rely on conjecture. A real atheist would demand hard evidence. Clearly, he/she is a fake atheist who believes anything that engages in harassing theists. He/she has no class or decency. Atheist Alexander wrote blog posts providing documentation which shows the claims on the link atheismnthecity provided as fabricated:https://studiousatheist.wordpress.com/category/rosa-rubicondior/Atheismnthecity claims that I use fake accounts to comment on my own tweets. This is a complete falsehood. Note how he/she does not provide evidence. There is no information regarding IP address or location which would show me and the alleged accounts belonging to me. They are just lies meant to distract from his/her inability to engage me in honest debate. If he/she cannot beat me, he/she will slander me. This is typical behavior of a sore loser. Moreover, he/she claims that my degree is fake. This is another falsehood and is another deflection from the fact that he/she has no degrees. The screen shot I share shows the link to the CunyFirst website. Any IT person at CUNY can confirm its existence on their servers. Moreover, atheismnthecity lies about the reviews of my book. If he/she were smart, he/she would realize that the bad reviews were posted within an hour after my book appear on Amazon. Alleged atheist trolls vowed to downrate my book. I even posted their photos on my Twitter account. The real reviews are here. Notice the verified purchases showing that these readers actually own my book.

As you can see, my book is extremely popular and highly rated. Atheismnthecity seems to be envious that he/she is not published. If his/her blog is what he/she is capable of, then any book published by him/her will be used to light fire places or for the restroom. Atheismnthecity simply does not understand science and believes that philosophical axioms are science. They are not. Ideas such as "causality does not exist," "all moments of time exist" and so on are not scientific theories. They are philosophical axioms and hypothesis in the world of physics. Mainstream science has not adopted them. One can search on Google Scholar and find very little papers on the topics. I have quoted from renown physicist Stephen Hawking where he explains that the theory of relativity can only allow for the universe to be created from a singularity. This means that the universe is not eternal. Moreover, I have demonstrated that physicists believe that the universe will come to an end when it runs out of usable energy and how others believe that it will contract back into a singularity. These ideas contradict eternalism and the ideas that atheismnthecity posit. Again, atheismnthecity is allergic to the facts and thinks that philosophical axioms are scientific theories.

Readers have pointed out to me the silliness in the replies made by atheismnthecity. As stated in previous posts, even atheists have called out the errors and nonsense posited by atheismnthecity. On his/her blog, a commentator named The Apatheist even corrected his/her errors. Atheismnthecity's response was to delete his/her comments. Atheismnthecity did so because the comments directly refuted his/her arguments. Allowing the comments would hurt the reputation of atheismnthecity. It is no wonder why he/she would remove it. We have to remind ourselves that atheismnthecity has no formal philosophical training or accreditation. His/her content is not worthy of publication or worthy of receiving a passing grade. Finally, atheismnthecity posts a tweet where my former professor Massimo Pigliucci "liked" his/her comment. I cannot speculate why Dr. Pigliucci would "like" the comment. I assume that he was just agreeing with the tweet because it came from an alleged atheist. Atheists will often stick together like a pack of wolves. Because of this, of course Pigliucci will "like" tweets posted in the name of atheism. This means nothing at all. In fact, Dr. Pigliucci "liked" a tweet where a Catholic philosopher described atheismnthecity as a troll. It is clear that Pigliucci liked that description and added his endorsement. Here is the tweet again:

My apologies. It was this troll @AtheismNTheCity who is including you in this. There are some who do not see any problems with the idea that God cannot do things that entail logical contradictions. However, there are those who believe differently. Nothing is set in stone.

I was hoping atheismnthecity would have been a challenge. Unfortunately, he/she disappointed me. Instead of presenting rigorous arguments that are supported by facts, he/she provided sophism embellished with nonsense. His/her conclusions are to the extreme of what is considered stupid. It is because bloggers like him/her that atheism is dying. No intelligent and educated person would take his/her content seriously. I have showed how when vetted against the facts, they fell extremely short. Atheismnthecity's is the reason why I wrote Atheism Is Stupid. It really is and atheismnthecity has demonstrated this. It is no surprised why he/she had to resort to ad hominem. Instead of attacking my content, he/she began to attack me. This tells us that he/she lacks the inability to address my refutation. I do not blame him/her. My refutations are heavily supported by philosophy and science. There is no other way to engage them without resorting to personal attacks. His/her claims to knowledge superior to that of scientists with doctoral degrees exhibits the Dunning-Kruger effect. There is no doubt about this. Atheismnthecity made a nice attempt to refute my refutation but failed miserably. His/she arguments are facile and transparent since they lack substance. I would love to formally debate him/her live on You Tube; however, I know he/she is too pusillanimous to accept. A formal debate with him/her would prove extremely easy. He/she would not last past the opening statement.

I surmise that he/she will resort to emotional outbursts out of frustration just as he/she has demonstrated in his/her replies. Calling someone stupid is not an argument. It only shows him/her to be the stupid one as Pigliucci pointed out. There is nothing factual in the 13 reasons that atheismnthecity posited. His/her supplementary posts are nothing more than restatements of his/her errors and the engagement of pigeon chess. Hopefully, atheismnthecity will learn from his/her mistakes and will actually earn a philosophy degree. This will prevent him/her from the sophism he/she has posted on his/her blog. No serious scholar would take him/her seriously. In his/her arrogance, atheismnthecity refuses to acknowledge his/her defeat. Dr. Bonnette, Dr. Pigluicci and other atheists have pointed out to him his/her errors; yet he/she believes that he/she was winning all along. Perhaps this was his/her safety blanket or attempt at self-soothing. I hope my readers have enjoyed this exchange and will learn from it. They will see that atheismnthecity has presented the fact that Atheism Is Stupid. It is clear that atheismnthecity is not interested in honest debate. He/she is incapable of it. I believe he/she is using my popularity to attract visitors to his/her unknown blog. I am renown on and offline by parties in the Catholic Church, the atheist community and academia. My content is viewed by millions.

Atheismnthecity was unknown to me until one of my followers replied to his/her tweet that he/she sent me here:

I had no idea this alleged atheist existed. Clearly, his/her account and site are so insignificant that they do not show up on search engines. He/she clearly knew of me and that is why he/she messaged me. When I saw his/her link to his/her 13 reasons, I laughed at the stupidity in it and decided to refute it to break the ego of the author. He/she seems to think that he/she has a gem of a post. In reality, I have demonstrated that the post is worthless and void of facts. After I sent the refutation, others including atheists began to mock atheismnthecity for his/her poor writing:

From what I read, you're the one resorting to ad hominem. You have no solid basis for your arguments. You got the #science and #philosophy all wrong. Furthermore, you clearly don't know what.#presentism is.

Stop being silly. With every statement, you demonstrate yourself as being stupid & uneducated. No scientist or philosopher would take you seriously. I have degrees in #science and #philosophy. You do not. You even get #presentism wrong. I know way more than you and showed it. pic.twitter.com/0w4HE9RdaS

Keep looking stupid. Your arguments are not even arguments. They are splices of Shermer and Wikipedia. That is why they do not hold water and show that you are not well versed in science & philosophy. Other atheists called you out on this. Why lie? I destroyed you. 🤣

The work is already on my site. You have been refuted, hence, your last resort was ad hominem, calling me gay and other things. You are defeated. Have a formal debate with me, provide identification and academic credentials see https://t.co/u5jLYsloBX

More unfounded claims. The majority of philosophers are not atheists. Stop lying for #atheism. Have some dignity. To debate me see https://t.co/u5jLYsloBX. Hopefully, you will comply. You will be a breeze to destroy in a debate. Your poor posts show you would not last.

As you can see, atheismnthecity has been the laughing stock of Catholics, apatheists, atheists, gays and so on. He/she has presented him/herself as a clown. He/she cannot take defeat and that is sad. One has to know his/her weaknesses in order to improve in life. Atheismnthecity has proven him/herself incapable of being an apologist for atheism. His/her content shows that Atheism Is Stupid.

Welcome

All posts and original content are copyright Sacerdotus.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, contact author.

If permission is given, provide credit to the author, do not alter the content and backlink to the original post.

Named in Top 100 Catholic Blogs

Named in Top 30 Atheist Blogs

​

Named in Top 100 Philosophy Blogs

Translate This Page Into Many Languages

Fundraising - Please donate

Support the Ministry

Comments

Thank you for reading and for your comment. Please be patient if you posted a comment. Spammers and other people who hide under "anonymous" sometimes post vulgar or nonsensical comments that I cannot post for obvious reasons. If your comment pertains to the posting and is free of ad hominem and vulgarity, rest assured it will be posted.